TARGET dressing rooms have rocking red walls, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
Last June, my buddy A left me a voicemessage late one night after having watched the film, Paris je t’aime, which actually consists of eighteen short films by 21 directors, each of the stories taking place in different arrondissements (municipal boroughs) of Paris. Walking […]

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“What do you mean he don’t eat no meat?!”, by yaznotjaz
Re. the post title: Oh, I lowve that filum.
"Akhtar de umbarak sha!" as we say in Pukhtu.
And "Eidi ni umbarak hoviya!" as we say in Hindko.
And I’m not quite sure what the Urdu-speakers say. Probably something simple and formal like, "Eid mubarak!"
Oh, wait, that’s Arabic. […]

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Hands in supplication, by yaznotjaz
Last night, the Pakistani satellite channel, ARY-Digital, showed the Hajj pilgrims, a sea of white, at Arafat and Muzdalifah. I watched the television while eating dinner, the volume turned up loudly so that the pilgrims’ invocation echoed throughout the house:
Labayk Allahumma labayk, labayka la shareeka laka labayk. Innal-hamda, wa’naimata, laka wal-mulk, […]

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Let’s go home, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
By Tuesday or so, I had already realized this week needed to be over. My GMail status:
Dear God: Please make it be Saturday already, because this week kind of sucks. Thank you.
Love, Yasminay
The responses were hilarious:
Anjum, channeling God:
Dear Yasminay,
*sigh*, I get this request every week from you.
[…]

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A chessboard awaits potential players in an Oakland park, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
The Lovely L Lady asked me this evening, “So, what do you do during this meditation?”
“Well. I just close my eyes and concentrate on dua [supplications] and dhikr and any other prayers I have memorized.”
“Oh, good,” she said in mock relief. “I thought […]

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From the Ramadan Cookie Project 2006 photoset, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz
To state the obvious, since everyone is talking and blogging about it these days, Ramadan is here! Has been here for a couple of weeks, actually. How are we nearly halfway through the month already?
I wasn’t fasting on Monday, so I took a slice […]

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Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
I’m so tired of constantly feeling so tired - I don’t sleep enough, I fall asleep holding books I once could have finished reading in a single day, I sleep crookedly, and my neck has been aching for over a week. Also, there’s that drama that enters my head once in a […]

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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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Pencils so pretty, it makes you want to eat them, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
My (3 or more) Beautiful Things posts always contain snippets from a single given day of the week, but, in this case, I haven’t written in a while, so the following is a compilation of things from the past couple of weeks:
one. […]

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Trying to be difficult at the Berkeley Marina, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz
Yesterday morning, I checked my emails and found the following facebook message from my sister’s friend and classmate (this makes her my friend by default, too, I think). S wrote:
hooooly, lardki!
omg omg omg, i just discovered your mad photo hobby. ummmm, what?? you take […]

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Abraham & Eid-ul-Adha, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz. Verses 103-111 from Chapter 37 (Those Who Stand Together) of the Quran [The Qur’an: A New Translation, by Thomas Cleary]
Eid mubarak, beautiful rockstars! May we accept the challenges that come our way with just as much fortitude and patience and willingness for personal sacrifice as that displayed by […]

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A chessboard awaits potential players in an Oakland park, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
“Are you happy, Yasminay?” asked HijabMan the other day through GMail chat [apparently the best/only way to get ahold of me these days - since I suck at returning people’s phone calls and replying to their emails and I can’t be bothered […]

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Pencil in that patriotic profundity, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
I forgot to share with you all a rocking weblog I came across during Ramadan: MUSLIM FOR A MONTH.
And - hey look, kids, you were supposed to be nominating submissions for the annual Brass Crescent awards! The deadline is Friday, November 17, 2006 (yes, tomorrow). Obviously, if […]

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Eid mubarak, crackstars! Can you believe it’s over? Yeah, me either. Have a beautiful day, lovely people - may it be a blessed time for you and yours.
(PS: I don’t even get a real Eid - seminar all day Monday, projects on Tuesday, regardless of whatever day I would have chosen to celebrate. The good […]

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Eid mubarak, crackstars! Can you believe it’s over? Yeah, me either. Have a beautiful day, lovely people - may it be a blessed time for you and yours.
(PS: I don’t even get a real Eid - seminar all day Monday, projects on Tuesday, regardless of whatever day I would have chosen to celebrate. The good […]

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