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Entries Tagged as 'Conversations and Encounters'

Way up here, we stand on shoulders

July 31st, 2012 · 5 Comments

Poste Maroc, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
I found this post languishing in my Drafts folder, dated nearly 2 years ago. You all seemed to enjoy my previous post on Open Letters to My Fellow Commuters so much, I thought I would post something similar again, this time open letters to a series of people I’ve encountered […]

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Tags: Conversations and Encounters

Kindness erases a city of strangers

November 7th, 2011 · 17 Comments

In Chicago: What separates us?, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
This is a story about the afternoon I went to Target. And no, it is not about how I walked in to return a few items and buy some placemats and a pack of nails to hammer into the walls for my latest creative project, and somehow, […]

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Tags: Conversations and Encounters · Rockstar and Crescent

We are crooked souls trying to stay up straight

October 18th, 2011 · 11 Comments

Outside the post office, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
The man sitting at the table next to mine in the coffeeshop this morning left his fancy-looking sunglasses on the table as he was leaving. I glanced over and noticed them just as the shop door was closing behind his retreating figure—and just as casually glanced away, making […]

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Tags: Conversations and Encounters · Resident Rockstar

We’re all going to the end of the line: Open letters to my fellow commuters

July 30th, 2009 · 34 Comments

Public transport is ROCKING, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
ZB suggested one evening in Toronto that I should create a weblog-category based around BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), so that everyone can read all my stories of being hit on while using public transportation. The idea made me laugh, but I’ve taken it under consideration and created […]

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Tags: Conversations and Encounters · Travels and Travails

But I don’t want to write a love song for the world

June 21st, 2009 · 10 Comments

Post office errands, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
3 Beautiful Things, the downtown Berkeley post office edition
I. One morning, I was at the post office and somehow got into a conversation about languages with the woman at the counter who was helping me with my express-mail packages. And she told me that her now-29years-old grandson, almost 30, […]

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Tags: (3)BeautifulThings · Conversations and Encounters · NineToFive outside the 925

I think the shade of you is on the brink/of changing all the ways I see the world

May 1st, 2009 · 28 Comments

Purple at Casa420, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
Walking out of work the other evening, I crossed paths yet again with everyone’s favorite security guard, he of the 86,400 seconds in a day.
As I strode past, he called out after me, “Purple is in!”
I turned back, confused. “Oh?”
“Yeah! Didn’t you know that? Purple is the color of […]

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Tags: Conversations and Encounters · NineToFive outside the 925 · Resident Rockstar

Nobody said it would be easy now/we live in a lucky town

October 12th, 2008 · 6 Comments

Public library, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
It’s afternoon, and I’m sitting inside a coffeeshop, right beside the large window overlooking the street. I’ve been here for hours, watching the way the light shifts and feeling the sunshine and shadows spill across my table.
The two men sitting right outside my window seem to know nearly every […]

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Tags: Casa420 and Familia · Conversations and Encounters

Forks were invented for a purpose

June 12th, 2008 · 10 Comments

The better to stab you with, originally uploaded to flickr by yaznotjaz.
Last night, I joined ZMan and my sister and our friend F in Berkeley for dinner and dessert (gelato!) and a catching-up session. I’d not seen Z since our South Bay dinner back in November, and we decided it must have been a […]

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Tags: All-Star Crackstar Squad · Conversations and Encounters

One morning, I woke up and I was suddenly twelve feet tall

March 22nd, 2008 · 24 Comments

Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
Last Wednesday, I went to a Mohja Kahf poetry reading at Mudraker’s in Berkeley (it was rocking, by the way!), and ended up seeing some old buddies and making a couple of new friends. One guy I shook hands with towards the end of the evening exclaimed, “You have a really firm […]

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Tags: Conversations and Encounters · Resident Rockstar

Because if I’ve done nothing else in five years of blogging, I’ve at least indulged in drug references as a form of public service

March 17th, 2008 · 13 Comments

From an IM conversation with a friend:
M: bas yaara, sorry for boring you
Yasmine: dude, not at all, hope i helped in some way

M: I need some crack
Yasmine: crack is always good
just stay away from the real deal crazy estuff
i don’t want to have to tell your ummy i introduced you to […]

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Tags: All-Star Crackstar Squad · Conversations and Encounters

So, I’m taking the Mister from out in front of your name

November 11th, 2007 · 7 Comments

From the Textures & Textiles set, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
I’m sitting outside the Nordstrom’s fitting rooms - impatiently checking my watch, hating the idea of being in that specific store, and waiting for my friend, N - when a guy settles into the armchair next to me with a loud, long-suffering sigh. I look over […]

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Tags: Conversations and Encounters · NaBloPoMo2007

Someday, the light will shine like a sun through my skin

November 6th, 2007 · 13 Comments

Mid-day meditation, orginally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
From Wednesday, September 26, 2007:
D text-messaged me again late on Tuesday night: Can we please go to meditation group tomorrow? She is in graduate school now, and I detected a hint of desperation.
So, we did. And it was beautiful, as always. D drove down from Vallejo, S came from San […]

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Tags: All-Star Crackstar Squad · Conversations and Encounters · NaBloPoMo2007

City days: River, culture, speech, sense of first space and the right place

May 4th, 2007 · 48 Comments

Near MACLA, downtown San Jose, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
I was taking BART into San Francisco one Sunday a few weeks ago when a young man got on the train at the MacArthur station and glanced curiously at me for much longer than I was comfortable with as he made his way down the aisle.
A […]

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Tags: Conversations and Encounters · Rhymes and unrhymed lines · Rockstar and Crescent · Salaam Namaste · Travels and Travails

I just opened up my eyes, and let the world come climbing in

March 26th, 2007 · 19 Comments

A child’s shoes on Muir Beach, September2005, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
At the start of every single week, I think to myself, Let’s go to meditation this week. The last couple of months, I have had to defer my personal Wednesday evening preferences in favor of work-related meetings and events. Last Wednesday was different: Today is […]

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Tags: Conversations and Encounters · Loss and laments and letting go

Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m standing in the wrong line

November 11th, 2006 · 2 Comments

Having ordered and paid for a caramel pecan cream pie at Baker’s Square last week, I was idly checking out the tattoos on the young man named Brian who was boxing up and bagging my purchase. Suddenly, Brian glanced at me across the counter and asked, “Do you know what sundar means?”
“Sorry, what was that?”
“Sundar. […]

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Tags: Conversations and Encounters · Salaam Namaste