And so it begins...

...the beginning of a month and a half without my mommy and littlest sister of all, Heaba. We left the house at 4:30 (aka the plumber booty crack of dawn) to see them off at the airport. They'll come back from Jordan (hopefully with Sara and Alia?!?) on June 24th.
Until then, you can call me the Lone Ranger, the Night Wolf, the Solo Cholo, etc. Well, uhh, technically, I guess you can only call me those names from 7 AM - 6 PM on weekdays, because my solo-ridin' ends when either my dad or brother get home. Hahahah - I am gonna practice my funnies during this break, y'all!

Anywho, it's been a sad kind of day - it is so empty at home! Even Misha felt it - he was being nicer than usual to me today (I appreciate that, big daddy).
But what's the use of being a Pessimistic Patricia when you can stress over a stir-fry thingamajig that basically exploded before your eyes when you added chicken slices to it, or when you can revel at how miserably you've failed at making basic rice? It sure does help get one's mind off of how much they miss their mama and sistas!

Here's the finished product, for the taste buds on your eyeballs:

...we'll see if I get better at cooking over the course of this month. 

Buzzzzz

I had my eyes closed, and Fade Into You was the song I was singing along to. 
I spun around a few times in this triangle of light streaming in from the window. 
And I was pretending it was moonlight, because why couldn’t it be? 
It was night, and it was dark, and it was quiet, so I could very well be twirling around in a triangle of moonlight dancing its way in to say hello. 
Or something like that. 
But then I heard the dryer go off, and I remembered that the moon wasn’t out, 
that it was just the porch light that someone had forgotten to turn off, 
that I had to go inside where the lights were even brighter, 
and that I had laundry to unload.

Playing catch-up

Sara and Alia will have been in Jordan for two weeks this coming Monday.
My uncle is visiting next week, on the 17th.
I have been ranting about my English class since the dawn of time, and I still really haven't stopped.
Last weekend was super, duper nice - I had duck soup with Thoa, spent an entire day with Ola and Abeir, and had breakfast the next morning with Thoa and my baby girl Tegan.
I made a sort of *~connection~* with my auburn-haired beauty. We basically had an actual face-to-face conversation for about an hour and a half! But he still doesn't know I exist, hahahaha.
Last night, I dreamed about someone making me smell their feet. If there are any dream-interpreters among you, will you please let me know what this signifies?
Tomorrow, I'm taking Heaba to the museum in Fort Worth.

(there are numerous other things I should be doing now)

When I was little-r (I want to say, like... grade school... but you'll have to ask my mama), I had only the biggest obsession with New York. Manhattan Island, especially, intrigued me. On our flights to Jordan, I remember looking out the plane window as we flew out of the state, excitedly asking where Manhattan was. My heart beat faster knowing I was so close to it!
Skip to early high school, and my friends Dani, Alexa, and Shaina and I made a pact that we'd live in The Big Apple together.
A few days ago, I watched Bill Cunningham: New York, and there was a scene where Bill opened the window of his apartment. Hearing the sounds of cars and people, the way it all sounds when it's streaming up from a busy, ever-changing sea below, basically reaffirmed that I still really want to live there.

I'm actually not too particular - I just want to be near a blustering city.
I like to think I'd never tire of honking cars, fast-walking people, or weird smells.
I'd certainly never tire of taking in all the lights at night (lights are pretty much my favorite things ever [I'm not kidding]).

Because of this sighing mood I'm in, so wistful and so dreamy, I'll close this with a wistful and dreamy song.

Blast from the past

I found something I wrote almost three and a half years ago and want to share it here for easy access. These are good reminders for me.

These are things you need to know to be happy:

• Other people want to be happy, too. No one likes feeling crummy, so don’t take it personally if you’re not always exclusively included in what makes a specific somebody happy. Just find another way to be happy.
• Being happy is not a way to get back at other people. It’s just being happy -- for yourself.
• Sometimes, it might help to pretend that you’re another person. Not a different person, but another person, if that makes sense. Another version of You.
• Reading helps with that (above) because you can really be somebody else. Read something tragic so you can feel all of those tragic things and realize, hey! look! I have got it goooood! Also read non-tragic things so you can feel those non-tragic things, too, and be happier still.
• At night, when you’re in bed, never, ever think of these things:

1. school
2. work
3. any faulty relationships in your life
4. how messy your room is
5. pretty much anything that makes you feel stressed or anxious

because you have so much time when you’re awake to think of those things, and well gosh, isn’t it stupid to bother yourself with things that make you feel blue almost a full 24 hours of every day?

• It’s fun to challenge yourself. I like to think I have a high tolerance for pain, so just to prove to myself that I do, I’ll push my own limits if I have to deal with things (physically, too. like today I was making cupcakes and the batter got real thick but I still kept mixing it even though it hurt, and boooy did I have fun mixing it even though it hurt for the precise reason that it hurt! It was like I was beating myself in a game!) When you’re playing against yourself, it’s easier to win.

Pina

Sometime a long time ago, I watched a documentary about the late choreographer Pina Bausch. Though I wouldn't consider myself an avid fan of contemporary dance, there is so much in her work to be appreciated. I mean, just look at those stills! If you want some more magical things for the seeing orifices on your face to enjoy, this is the place to go. These pictures take me elsewhere.

EDIT ON 8/24/15 AT 2:38 AM: stfu Aya........... stop acting like you know what you're talking about, ya big, fat Snob

Spot by the window

So that's my view up there right now, coming at you live! I have my own little cubicle on the fourth floor of the campus library, and I feel so lucky because my seat is right next to the window. If this is spot were a sort of truffle, I don't know whether it would be one of those super sought-after ones, but I mean, I feel pretty privileged to be sitting here. I was reading for my government exam when I realized that for literally 10ish minutes, I had not moved from the FIRST THREE LINES of the 100+ pages I'm supposed to get through by next week. And so, here I am!

For the past couple of nights, and today super early in the morning, I've been stepping outside for a little bit because Misha (dat's ma kitty poo) likes to take trips to the front yard. It's been smelling and feeling and sounding like the summer before my sophomore year of high school. A few seconds outside, when the sun's on the other side of the earth, and I have listened to all the songs I had on repeat in 2009; and I've laid out for hours, sunbathing, on the trampoline we used to have in our backyard; and I've gone to Chicago and had deep-dished pizza from Giordanno's; and I've done all that in the span of five minutes and come back to where I'm standing on the porch in 2014. 

This makes me miss things. 

But this isn't the nostalgia that makes you wish you could have it all again. It's the kind that makes you happy you had it, and the kind that makes you hungry for more things to feel nostalgic over a few years from this instant.

I guess, this being my bloggy poo and all, I'm allowed to write whatever I want - even if it's rather useless (hahaha.... go away if you thought that was useless).