huda kazi in the big city

The second best part of tonight’s Thrashers game was sitting behind the group of die-hard, Kovalchuk-t-shirt-wearing fans, half of whom were under the age of twelve, and watching them turn around to rub Dan’s nose in it whenever the Thrashers scored a goal on the New York Rangers. At the end of the game, [the kids] beat him over the head with their inflatable Chick-fil-A thunder sticks while AM and I looked on in amusement. We had to rush out the door to prevent his suffering an injury at the hands of a diminutive but enthusiastic fan.

The best part of tonight’s Thrashers game was sitting in front of approximately seven Russians who cheered loudly in multiple languages the entire night. Half the “Let’s go, Thrashers!” cheers that engulfed the arena began in a distinct Russian accent. Their exuberance was infectious; even if we hadn’t already been wholeheartedly involved in the game, we couldn’t have helped it sitting right in front of them.

The best hockey moment of the night was when a Ranger whose name I don’t know (and I didn’t catch a glimpse of his jersey) grabbed the puck and broke away from the pack, making straight for the Atlanta goal, and Thrashers goaltender Kari Lehtonen came out of the box to meet him, ready for whatever was coming next, daring unnamed Ranger to take him on. Unnamed Ranger tried his very best, I’m sure. I know it’s nothing unusual for the goaltender to do, that it’s all part of the game, but for me it was such a made-for-Hollywood-slow-motion moment. The snapshot is still in my head.

And yeah, Marian Hossa’s sudden death shootout goal to win the game was pretty awesome too, and not just because it led to the aforementioned pelting with thunder sticks.

Hockey is incredibly exciting to watch live, and I love going to Thrashers games. Now that it’s March, though, every live sporting event makes me think of the Braves and baseball season. Or Georgia Tech and baseball season. I may have a blast watching hockey or basketball at the Philips Arena, but y’all know I’m obsessive about baseball and Turner Field. (I can see Dan rolling his eyes from here.) Grass and sunlight and white bases surrounded by red clay — what’s not to love?

If only I could take the Russians with me. Ah, well. I guess I can’t have everything.

The state of South Dakota, it has banned all abortions except for those cases that threaten the life of the mother.

According to this Time article, they’re just the first state in the charge, much like South Carolina seceding from the Union in 1861. Roe v. Wade, say the conservatives, is more vulnerable than ever now that we’ve got the likes of Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court, so there has never been a better time to push forth the legislation.

The South Dakota bill is dangerously radical. There are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. There are no exceptions for cases threatening the health of the mother. In other words, abortion is only legal if the mother will die but not if the mother might die. A thin line, that one. At what point does might become will?

The lack of rape/incest provision is equally disturbing. Under the terms of the bill, a rape victim can legally take emergency contraception (the morning after pill) if she does it quickly enough there’s no medical way to prove that she’s pregnant and is actually having an abortion of sorts. So on top of dealing with the physical and emotional trauma of the attack, the victim now has to remember she has exactly seven days to make sure she’s not pregnant because the state has no patience for lollygaggers. Never mind that victims, especially of incest, are too frightened or too young to know where to go or who to trust, or that the mantra of “Punish the rapist, not the baby,” leaves no room for the welfare of the victim.

Or that their solution is dependent on whether the victim’s pharmacist will actually give her said emergency contraception, the one that has been prescribed to her by her doctor.

I am waiting for the day that HB 93, introduced in the Georgia General Assembly last year, makes it onto the docket and we become the next South Dakota. I’m disappointed enough that SB 123 passed in the Senate on Friday, and I have little to no hope of its being squashed in the House. This is, after all, Georgia.

It still remains that a pharmacist who has ethical objections to dispensing a medication should either refrain from imposing those objections on his patients and just pass said patients onto the next available pharmacist, or should find himself a new profession. I for one have an ethical objection to dispensing alcohol, so I opt not to work in an environment where I may one day be called upon to dispense alcohol. Shocking, I know.

I’m having a small, casual dinner party tomorrow night, so of course I am doing my usual thing: panicking ever so slightly. Or a lot, depending on your perspective. At the moment, I’m sitting up waiting for my palak gosht to cool enough that I can refrigerate it safely.

All tomorrow’s guests have been here before, so I won’t have to warn any of them that the candles on the tables are in fact real and they should be careful. You’d think I’d never have to warn anyone of that at all. You’d think.

Four days after I moved into the townhouse, six days after I signed all the papers, I hosted the annual Evans Girls winter party. I had very little furniture, but we made do, some of us roughing it on my cold hardwoods, some of us crammed on the one couch I’d bought in my apartment days.

I had put tealights all over the still-bare room, some on the coffee table. We were watching Monsters, Inc. Leta turned around, I don’t remember for what, but certainly not to say, “Jason, your shoe is on fire!”

And yet, there it was, his right foot, blazing away, having tipped too close to the flame from one of the tealights on the coffee table.

He hadn’t noticed. Nobody had noticed. And now that we had noticed, we were all collectively freaking out… everybody else because Jason’s foot was on fire and me because he was putting it out on my new hardwoods.

I sincerely hope that doesn’t make me a bad person.

In the end, Jason’s foot was fine and my floors were fine and everybody was fine. But y’all, if you happen to come over, the candles on the table are real, and coming too close may be hazardous to your health and my house.

There’s been so much going on in the world lately, and it’s all a jumble of words in my head, flashes of pictures in an order that makes sense only to me and could never translate onto a blog. It’s partly why I haven’t posted of late. The other part is that the jumble of words is also symptomatic of the disorganization that’s pervading my life at the moment. I have papers and books and yarn, but none of it is where it belongs. I need to tidy up if I’m going to get back on track.

In the meantime, I’m going to succumb to writer’s block and fill out the latest meme I’ve seen floating ’round the Internet. As usual, religious books are exempt because it’s not a fair fight.

1) Name five of your favourite books. It’s always hard to narrow them down, but here goes.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
My senior AP English teacher lent me this book the weekend before our first semester finals. I was obsessive about studying for finals; my parents wanted to see perfect scores on our report cards, and that included the semester final grade that showed up right next to the semester grade. I thought I could read a few chapters of the book as a periodic study break. It would have been a perfectly reasonable plan if only I hadn’t loved the book from the very first sentence. Eventually I was studying during my infrequent reading breaks.

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
The red-headed orphan who unexpectedly finds herself installed at Green Gables remains one of my favorite literary characters. She’s the one I picked to have lunch with in my Governor’s Honors application essay. Anne Shirley is not perfect, unlike the sickeningly idyllic Nancy Drew, but that’s what makes her a great character.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
“Thank you for my children, Arthur.”

That line gets me every time. The whole book gets me every time. It’s such a good story, and it’s written so beautifully. “Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.”

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those books you can read over and over again, each time finding something new to make you love it even more than you already did.

The High King by Lloyd Alexander
I was introduced to the Prydain Chronicles while I was still finishing up the Chronicles of Narnia, and I wasn’t interested in beginning another fantasy series where the characters might overlap personalities or the plots might overlap thematically. Of course, I didn’t know at the time the Narnia books were a giant Christian parable, although I’d begun to be a little suspicious as I was reading The Magician’s Nephew and The Last Battle.

In any case, read The Book of Three I finally did, only to discover it was as like the Narnia books as wine is to water. Both series have epic stories, but the difference is in the characters. (Also, now that I am older, the comforting lack of skull-shattering religious allegory.) Taran and Eilonwy live for me far more than any of the Pevensie children. I relate to them more. It helps that Alexander keeps essentially the same set of characters throughout his chronicles while Lewis cycles them out like they’re regulars on a Law and Order series.

Of all five books, The High King is the one that most resonated with me, that got into my head and wouldn’t get out. I think I could still quote lines even though I haven’t read it in years.

Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
My introduction to Salinger. After this I read Nine Stories and then Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters, and after that, Catcher in the Rye. I did it backwards. I gotta say, I like the Glass family better than Holden, which doesn’t mean that I don’t like Holden, just that I like Seymour and company more.

2) What was the last book you bought?

There were three of them, actually, since I was scanning the Borders buy-two-get-one-free table and actually found three books I was interested in and hadn’t already read. I often fall victim to that table, so I’ve adopted a new policy of reading the first chapter in any book I’m considering, and if the first chapter doesn’t hook me enough to make me want to read the entire thing right there in the store, I’m not allowed to buy the book. I used to feel guilty about reading books in bookstores — after all, it’s not a library, and I know I don’t want to buy a book whose spine has been broken and whose pages have been smudged by grubby hands — but I’ve since decided it’s okay since my intentions are good. Also, I take good care of the book as I’m reading it, so there are no cracked spines or dog-eared pages on my account.

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
I’m reading this one now, along with Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and I’m surprised by how much I like it. Vowell relates the history of various presidential assassinations (I’m only through Lincoln as of now) with humor and compassion, sometimes drawing parallels between events then and events now. It’s likely I would be less appreciative of the book if I were Republican, as Vowell makes no secret of her politics, but luckily for me, I’m a Democrat.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Not because of Capote since I’ve never been the kind of person that reads a book because of a movie, but because I’ve wanted to read it since I learned Capote and Harper Lee were such good buddies. I’m not even entirely sure I want to see the movie.

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon
The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was good, if a bit descriptive. I like the way Chabon writes, too, and I’ve been trying to read more good writing lately.

3) What was the last book you read?

The Golem’s Eye by Jonathan Stroud
I liked The Amulet of Samarkand, but I think I love The Golem’s Eye. I’m not sure why. It may have to do with how much more tolerable I found Nathaniel this go-around. In Amulet, he was kind of whiny and raging, while here he’s less so despite being in a position where it’s slightly more warranted. Golem knows more about the themes it’s trying to convey, or at least is better at conveying them, possibly because it’s not facing the unenviable task of setting up a trilogy.

4) List five books that have been particularly meaningful to you (in no particular order).

The Holy Quran
Okay, so I lied. Here it is. But making up a list of meaningful books and omitting the Quran is like making chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips: a mere shadow of the cookie (or list) it’s supposed to be.

Many people think of the Quran purely from a religious perspective, as a collection of rules and parables, a book of what to and not to do. It’s that and so much more. In the Quran, I find guidance and support, warnings galore, strength and wisdom. “On no soul doth Allah place a burden greater than it can bear,” says the Quran, and that’s what I need to hear to know that I can indeed do this, whatever “this” may be.

In the Quran, I find a message I can believe. I find faith. And in the Quran, I find poetry.

Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The Parable of His Light is as if there were a Niche and within it a Lamp: the Lamp enclosed in Glass: the glass as it were a brilliant star: Lit from a blessed Tree, an Olive, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil is well-nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it: Light upon Light! Allah doth guide whom He will to His Light: Allah doth set forth Parables for men: and Allah doth know all things. [24:35]

As with all religious books, the Quran means more to those of us who believe in its message. To me it means very much indeed.

On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder
This was my very first novel. I read it over and over again until the cover started to fall off and my mother had to put it back together with masking tape. I think I like the later Little House books more (there’s nothing better than Laura telling Almanzo whether she’ll marry him depends on the ring he offers her), but I have a special fondness for the one that got me into the series in the first place.

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
The funny thing about this book is that I avoided it for years. Almost everyone I knew had read it, and I was not going to be like everyone, especially since if everybody read it, that meant it probably wasn’t good anyway. I don’t remember why I finally read it in high school, but I do remember the copy I had gotten from the library was missing the last few chapters. It had the page where Anne is standing in the door of the farmhouse holding narcissi and Matthew falls… and then nothing. Waiting to find out what happened next was agonizing, especially because I always have to know what happens next, even if I hate the book/show/movie itself. It’s much worse when you love the characters, like I did (and do) Anne and Matthew and Marilla.

I took to haunting the library for the sequels, which never appeared in the order I needed them to, until finally I just gave up and read Anne’s House of Dreams before the elusive Anne of the Island and Anne of Windy Poplars. I had problems obtaining Anne of the Island, so many that I asked one of my middle school friends if she’d check it out of her school library for me. In exchange, I’d get Gone With the Wind for her from my high school library.

The only copy of GWTW my school had had a cover whose photo was a still shot of the scandalous Rhett/Scarlett scene from the movie version, with Vivien Leigh in Clark Gable’s arms, her red dress just about falling off in places it most certainly shouldn’t, so I put the book into a paper bag as though it were contraband whiskey and took it with me to Islamic school at the mosque on Friday. I was too young to drive, and the mosque was the one place we were both guaranteed to be.

We met up to make the switch, only she’d forgotten to get Anne of the Island for me. I gave her GWTW anyway, and she said bring me my book the next week. On Sunday, she returned GWTW to me because her father had seen the cover and didn’t approve of her reading “those kinds of books,” and that was the end of our deal. I didn’t actually read Anne of the Island until I bought myself the entire set, figuring I checked the available ones out of the library so much I might as well own them.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
Like and equal are not the same. Love is more powerful than evil. Being different is a good thing.

This is a book whose first line is, “It was a dark and stormy night.”

I wanted a Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit of my very own, but I think I know now what they meant when they said there were some things we have to do by ourselves.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
I bought this book to give myself a distraction, possibly a happy distraction, so I wouldn’t pay quite as much attention to how tumultuously sad I was at the time. It was forty percent off at Barnes and Noble (the one on Peachtree right before the Buckhead bar district that I used to go to in college because it was (at the time) the closest bookstore to Tech, that I don’t go to now because it’s no longer in my line of activity but that I still love because it takes me back to being in college), it was in hardcover, and it had been positively featured in an articled I’d read recently. This was, I should mention, back before Harry Potter took the States by storm.

Dan and I went to the Caribou Coffee on the corner of 10th and Piedmont (the intersection made infamous in an episode of ER for being a drug corner although I think they meant the corner of Juniper and Pine because I actually have seen drugs there, whereas 10th and Piedmont is just flamboyantly gay) to study theory, except that I couldn’t put down Harry Potter, and Dan had to give me A Lecture On My Priorities. But y’all, I loathe computing theory.

I am personally responsible for addicting a dozen people, none of whom had previously heard of the book, by either raving about it or giving them a copy of it, whether they appreciated it or not. (Somebody who shall remain nameless dismissed it as a children’s book she’d never read or like. She brought it out one night when she was suffering from insomnia, only to sit up until dawn reading it.)

The Harry Potter series I love because they are good books, but this particular one is special because it brought me brightness at a time when I dearly needed it.

5) Name three books you’ve been dying to read but just haven’t gotten around to it.

The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong
I’m holding this book hostage as incentive to get me through The History of God, which is long and cumbersome even if it is also incredibly interesting. I keep getting distracted when I make an attempt to plow through the latter as it reads like a text I’d be assigned in a history course, so I’m not allowed to read the less-scholarly Battle until I’ve finished its predecessor. I’m really curious as to how reading Battle will affect my perspective on the rising religious fundemantalism in the world today.

The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
I loved The Namesake for its writing and its story and the way it made me think about changes and sacrifices and fitting in. I’ve heard Maladies leaves Namesake in the dust, so I have to read this book. I put it on the bookshelf in a fit of cleaning one day, and now I tend to forget that I have it since usually the only books on the bookshelf are the ones I’ve finished reading.

Ptolemy’s Gate by Jonathan Stroud
The last book in the Bartimaeus trilogy, but it’s not out in paperback yet, and I can’t buy the hardback version because that will ruin my set. Having a matching set is very important to me. Yes, I am a little obsessive. It’s okay, though. I’m a patient obsessive.

Whew. That’s a long post, both in terms of content and how much time it took me to do. And now, who do I tag? Hmm… Aisha, of course, because of all the times she’s tagged me, Dan, Rashaad, and Alicia, if she’s reading this post because I know she has something to say on the subject.