and then our exile

Farooq says: but akhi!! arabic is hard! initially i was like... i GOT this language... but then... i'm like... dang jina!
Farooq says: and... my teacher says "jazaks" and "ma fawq kalby".
echolalia: acts 9:1-30 says: hah crazy. but ma fawq kalby? what's that? "what's above my something"?
Farooq says: "whats up my dogg?"
echolalia: acts 9:1-30 says: HA!!
Farooq says: he teaches arabic... and i teach ebonics.

Eight days till departure, and there remains so much yet to do. i'd thought that perhaps this summer might be a time wherein i'd be able to do all those proverbial things, or at least to have some time without the constant invading "movement", but it's been only the past few days that have slowed down enough to arrange myself, even while this arranging itself is rushed.

Talked to Ph-R-D this morning, which was amusing as we each accused the other of causing the debacle that's become the two-day transit overlap (along the lines of "it's you!" "no, it's YOU" "no, YOU!!!" "no, it's YOUR FAULT" ":@:@" ":@:@:@:@" ":@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@"), he on his way back from Afrika and me on my way out into the wild, meaning i shan't have seen him for a year and a half. i'll miss you akhi. Don't get married unless i'm in town.

Well. Lists these days, of things to take, of millstones other people owe me and i owe others. TG and the MMs need letters; EK and ZK need emails; NFK and MU need days of my life; TFR, MI and EH need time; if i can, JM and MS need responses; LC owes me photographs and a letter; i myself must arrange aufwiedersehen-geschenke for a bunch of people, and clear and clean and chop and cut, and organize my head and my heart, and get some sort of respectable responsibility in line, and live up to my priorities...
This last should be the easiest, but i find it the opposite.

Dressed like a kommunist yesterday. Walked around downtown for a while. Rolled down a hill, meandered around the river. After watermelon today i lay on the deck chair, Usman on my chest, and we both fell asleep.

To illustrate one tiny facet of what i mean about having much to do, the following lists works i've started over the past few months in the wordical realm that now, unfinished, hang o'er my head like vacant nodules. i may write of them when they're finished.
(--the Qur’an, of course, the reveal’ed Word of God. Beauty and recall--a constant reminder, witness for humanity, a single monument of clarity and awe-inducing Power. Should finish the current recitation, and review faltering juz’ which depart the heart--cataclysmic sorrow, were every eye open.
(--The Passion of al-Hallaj, Louis Massignon. Massive volumes, not easy reading.
(--The Eleventh Hour, Martin Lings. From months ago. Modernism in the light of tradition.
(--The Widening Breach, Whitall Perry. Cosmological deconstruct of evolutionism. (Belinda should read this. har.)
(--Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition, a bunch of essays. Smells like apologist writing, even from the title, and that makes me wince, but content-wise i won't pass a verdict yet.
(--The Abduction of Lebanon, Robert Fisk. Ok, i'm going back to journalism now.
(--RURAL NIGHT CATALOGUE, MICHAEL DEBEYER. Poetry of gloryglory-beauty. Look him up, everyone: his words evoke fiercely delicate intertwined imagery, and that is all.
(--Theology of Swallows, David Manicom. Longstanding heartfriend. Also poetry.
(--The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje. From months ago. Taka spake of it recently.
(--Dubliners (and other tales), James Joyce. Not all appreciate Joyce. i do. (shrug)
(--Death in Venice and Other Stories, Thomas Mann. Aesthetic literature. Soars.

Any ideas of what one might need to live for a year, other than a lot of cloth? Because i'm stuck and can't think of anything more.

Listening: Filasteen, Emad Rami./