it sure is great america

we went to great america yesterday and were blessed with idyllic weather. a bit breezy, a bit of sun.

not much else to report regarding our day, other than the fact that roller coasters are one of the best inventions ever and long live roller coasters and, well, you get the idea. and ditto that for funnel cakes.

ah and a shout out to maryam j for being brave enough to sit in the front alone on the most rickety, rusty ride in the entire park.

and another to zainab for ensuring that we wouldn't go broke just buying the tickets!!

a new generation

at this moment, six of my friends are pregnant. there are actually a few more than that in the jamaat, but of people i know well, in chicago and elsewhere, six are expecting. it's awesome- i feel that the next few years will be full of pregnancy announcements, and everyone will go through this stage of life somewhat at the same time. just as all of our weddings coincided more or less within a few years; the last few years have brought 9 weddings, and the next few will bring even more.

here in chicago, there are about 30 of us who are about the same age (the age difference being about 4 or 5 years from youngest to oldest) and that means 22 to 28 years ago, all of our mothers must have been pregnant at the same time. all these aunties- young together, pregnant together, running after toddlers together.

history seems to be repeating itself. as usual, i guess.

(no predictable comments, please, about me joining the P team...)

birthday wishes

to all of you who called and emailed, thanks :) i felt the love and remembered why i love it when it's my birthday.

zainab, thank you for the gorgeous gift.

taher, ditto.

farida, thank you for the lovely song.

today was an especially good day in that it was moti-us-sawalat, and at masjid everyone had a reason to say mubarak to one another. and we took misaq today as well, so i feel especially cleansed as i begin a new year in my life.

i signed up for a class on adobe photoshop, so i can learn the intricacies of the program and become a better web designer. i am truly enjoying the web design stuff (although i still consider myself a writer, first and foremost), and want to focus on it a little bit more. it's creative and really, really fun.

my birthday will be over in an hour and a whole new year will begin for me. inshallah it'll be a good one!

search results

strange. type "failure" into google and see what the very first listing is.

it seems that google has an opinion of its own...

soundtrack of life

since i woke up this morning, there has been loud music filling the apartment. very, very loud music.

lollapalooza is this weekend in chicago, and today through sunday will find our apartment- and the entire downtown part of the city - rockin to the music of bands i know and bands i don't. 130 bands on eight stages, as the tagline for the festival tells me.

this morning, i found the constant noise a bit annoying- since our apartment looks upon grant park, we are pretty close to where the action is. i love our location, but this morning i was wishing we were a little farther from the party.

however, as the day wore on, i found myself appreciating the festival more. it's neat to be able to see part of the main stage from my window. and moreover, it's very cool to watch people going about their daily lives as this music wafts overhead. i went to get groceries in the afternoon, and being outside, with random, loud music sounding all around me was a distinctly cool experience. usually you have to carry your music with you; this weekend, however, everyone downtown is listening to the same music, whether they are at the festival or not.

everyone, hundreds of thousands of people, are united by the music in the air.

light

"He describes the light on the Seine. It was golden, he says; it had the effect of making you feel nostalgic for a mement you were still in."

this line hit home for me; it happens to me all the time. when i am having a genuinely good time, with people i really love, i feel this nostalgia. while i am still experiencing the moment, i feel sentimentally towards it.

it happens when taher and i are on our way to a movie or dinner and we are still in the car, looking for parking, and i am enjoying the anticipation of the evening and the pleasure of the company. it happened on the train in ireland as i sat next to devon, watching green countryside flying by- i knew that although this was only day 2 of our three-week trip, that it would fly by and the years would fly by and i could see myself looking back at that moment. just as i am now. it happened my senior year in college when i sat on the couch, talking on the phone to my bhabi tasneem, and telling her that christmas vacation was almost upon me and senior year was almost over and oh no! it was all almost over and i missed college already!

do you know what i mean?

come again!

meryam was here for an entire week- she left yesterday morning. it was really nice having her here- july has spoiled me, that's for sure.

while meryam was here, we definitely did some touristy things and some girly things and walked around the city and ate out- but we also did what we used to do when we lived together. just hang out, watch tv, read together. taher would always come home and find us reading and ask if we were bored, or wonder why we weren't having fun and utilizing every second we had together. it was hard to explain, but i was having SO much fun just being together, even if we were doing nothing.

i guess having lived with meryam, i am comfortable being silent with her. not feeling like i have to fill the space with conversation. it's a nice thing.

anyway. we did have our share of conversation as well, of course, and now that she has left i can re-add her to the list of people i miss. thanks for visiting, merm! come back soon :)