Prayers, etc.: * My daily prayers.

Health Metrics: * bw= 216.71 lbs. * bp= 133/81 (70)

Diet: * 06:15 – 1 peanut butter sandwich * 06:50 – plate of pasta (noodles) * 07:15 – lasagna * 09:20 – crispy oatmeal cookies * 10:30 – 1 banana * 13:00 – salmon steak, cooked spinach and mushrooms * 17:45 – ice cream

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 04:15 – listen to local news talk radio * 05:20 – bank accounts activity monitored * 05:35 – follow news reports from various sources, and nap * 12:30 to 14:00 – watch old game shows and eat lunch at home with Sylvia * 14:30 – sorting through accumulated paperwork * 18:00 – listening to tonight's WNBA Game: Indiana Fever vs Seattle Storm

Chess: * 09:25 – moved in all pending CC games

Using Seeds to Create Consistent AI Images

I burn, she steadies; my wild flame finds home in the shelter of her love.

I am the keeper of a flame, tender of a gentle heat that flares to conflagration— burning, hurting, so fierce I hide it:

doors barred, windows shut, the flue sealed tight to starve the fire.

Yet I can never extinguish it. It is too precious to me.

And so the cycle turns: fear and exhaustion, retreat into silence.

Until— into my life came a hearth:

steady, strong, built of fireproof love. A home of beauty, a welcome shelter that guards me from myself, and from the world.

The hearth asks little— only that I give my warmth. She bears the rest.

At last: a port against the winds, a refuge from the tempest that raged in me for a lifetime.

And I— I can never go back

#essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100daystooffset #writing #poetry

Coffee talk || 26 Auguest

The coffee today is strong. Not the kind that attacks the senses, but the kind that settles, heavy and purposeful, in the chest, a silent reminder that something. anything is real. I stir it lazily, observing the cream curl and twist like smoke trapped in morning sunlight. Hypnotic. Reflective. The world may explode outside this window, and I would barely register the way the vessel would be left empty.

I ponder over coffee as if observing it too intensely. The assurance of heat that precedes even the initial sip to the lips. The initial bite of flavor is too hot, biting shortly thereafter, giving way to warmth, a soft regret for its temporary bite. Others would refer to it as mere habit; to me, it is a ritual, a weak reference point in a day poised to melt into nothing. I notice details: the clink of spoon against porcelain, the steam curling up and vanishing as shy of its own presence, the bitter edges softened by sugar that holds back obstinately on complete surrender. Life in general is composed of such moments, small, unobtrusive, mostly unremarked. Coffee insists on attention.I would drink it forever if only I were concerned about its ultimate loss. I would sit here and observe the light cross the table and convince myself that the churning cream is a sign of things to come. But it is not. It is merely coffee, and that is sufficient.

The final sip is taken away. I place the cup down slowly, as one would leave a relic in its place of repose. I reach for a cigarette. The lighter lights; smoke wraps around me, indolent, indifferent. I take a deep breath, heat coalescing in the chest, the bitter flavor a small ceremony to remind one of one's own existence.

There is quiet here, not loud, not pressing, just here. Coffee. Cigarette. The inevitable march of the day, silent, unremarked, but sufficient.

Tea is still my favorite .

Sincerely, Ahmed

simpul (2019)

Di Kota tempat aku tinggal, orang-orang hobi membeli simpul. Dulu, aku sangat ahli membuat simpul. Di Kota ini, pandai membuat simpul adalah suatu kebanggaan; tidak ada orang yang mau repot-repot membuat simpul. Selain itu, kamu bisa jadi orang kaya.

Di toko-toko di pinggir jalan, orang menjual berbagai macam simpul. Setiap pagi, orang-orang akan mampir ke toko dan beli sebuah simpul. Pilih yang sempit atau yang lebar, yang mana saja asal pantas.

“Tak perlu repot, tinggal pasang saja” kata sang penjual.

Untuk orang-orang sibuk seperti mereka, membuat simpul dianggap membuang-buang waktu. Tapi buatku, membuat simpul sama sekali tidak sulit. Kamu bisa membuatnya dalam beberapa detik saja jika sudah terbiasa.

Sejak kecil, aku tinggal dengan Kakek. Setiap pagi setelah sikat gigi, Kakek selalu duduk di kursi bututnya di ujung kamar dan mulai membuat simpul. “Pakai simpul sendiri jauh lebih cantik. Simpan saja uangmu untuk beli baju.” Katanya.

Simpul-simpul Kakek selalu menjadi yang paling cantik di Kota. Banyak orang yang mengantri dari subuh di depan rumah Kakek untuk membeli simpul, bahkan sebelum Kakek sempat mengirimkan simpul-simpul itu ke toko.

Tapi, setahun yang lalu, Kakek meninggal. Orang- orang tetap mengantri di depan rumah Kakek untuk membeli simpul. Mereka tahu Kakek punya seorang cucu yang pandai membuat simpul; dan beberapa dari simpul yang sering mereka beli pasti buatan Sang Cucu.

Tapi, sejak hari itu, pintu rumah Kakek tidak pernah lagi terbuka.

Dua hari kemudian sekitar jam sepuluh pagi, Orang-orang melihat Sang Cucu pergi ke toko, memilih-milih simpulnya.

jam empat sore (2017)

suatu hari saat matahari tinggal separuh, aku ingin menulis cerita tentang pantat pancimu yang hitam dan tentang senyum dan gigi kamu yang putih.

lima belas juli selalu jadi tanggal favoritku. hanya di tanggal lima belas juli senyum dan gigimu pulang. tapi di keesokan harinya–tanggal enam belas–kamu melaut lagi.

lima tahun aku menunggu lima belas juli dan waktuku cuma dua puluh dua jam!

aku masih saja menyesali kenapa sampai saat ini aku belum bisa menyimpan senyum dan gigimu seperti aku menyimpan pantat pancimu. dua puluh dua jam tidak pernah cukup untuk mengingat senyum dan gigimu, apalagi tahun depan dua gigimu akan tanggal lagi. aku takut lima tahun lagi gigimu habis. dan aku tidak pernah punya kesempatan untuk menyimpan barang satu diantara mereka.

pernah aku memintamu untuk mengirim gigimu lewat botol kaca, tapi sayangnya, laut, botol, dan kamu sama sama pelupa.

di malam tanggal lima belas yang ke lima, bulan tinggal sepertiga. kamu bilang cinta kita seperti tanggal enam belas.

tapi aku bersikeras kalau cinta kita seperti jam empat sore.

Okay, I wrote a clickbait-y headline. I don’t know this for a fact. I’m just inferring it.

I answered the first push poll I got from research-polls, a shady outfit that turns out to be one guy in his condo in Fort Lauderdale. So now I get ‘em all!

The third and most recent one begins with the standard “do you have a favorable or unfaborable opinion of this person” question. So we’ve got Michelle Wu, Josh Kraft, Donald Trump, and…Marty Walsh?!

What possible reason could Mr. Research-Polls (I picture him as an extremely sweaty, bespectacled white guy with a mustache in a dirty Hawaiian shirt hunched over a bank of monitors in a dark room, though of course I know everybody in Florida has AC) have for asking me about Marty Walsh? He’s not running for anything!

I mean, I guess Josh could be testing a messaging strategy of “taking us back to the good old days in Boston when a white man was in charge as God intended.” We certainly can’t rule that out. But I think Josh is going to make a big announcement about how Marty Walsh is endorsing him to shore up his Boston bona fides, which is definitely something he needs because, as I’ve pointed out, MF still owns a house in Brookline 25 minutes away from where he nominally lives in Boston and was confused about his city of residence long after he supposedly took occupancy of the pied a terre.

I think a Trumpy billionaire who doesn’t really live in Boston is a terrible, terrible choice for mayor, which is why I keep writing these things.

And I take comfort in the fact that his campaign is being run by people who are either incredibly bad at this stuff or very good at this stuff and intentionally sabotaging his campaign. I get a mailer on an almost daily basis proclaiming how Josh is going to stand up to Daddy Trump (or, Demented Grampy Trump, to be more accurate).

Now, I firmly believe Josh is in this thing just to try to secure his biological daddy a stadium deal and not to be a Trump proxy. But realistically Josh Kraft can’t afford to stand up to Trump in any meaningful way. Because Trump is petty and vindictive. So if Josh defies Trump, Trump will go after Daddy Kraft’s business. The only way for Daddy Kraft to fix this would be to cut Josh off.

And guys like Josh Kraft who have grown up with unimaginable wealth have no idea how to live like regular people. I’m sure the idea of having to scrape by with no family money on a million bucks a year for some bullshit job he’d get after being mayor is actually terrifying to a guy like Josh Kraft. He’s not going to stand up to Trump. He can’t afford to. And these daily mailers have strong “My T-shirt saying I’m not in Trump’s pocket is raising a lot of questions answered by the shirt” energy.

But back to the Walsh endorsement. Although the local media loved him (because they’re mostly suburbanites, and Walsh consistently prioritized the needs of suburbanites over Boston residents), there’s not a lot of residual love for this dude in Boston.

Walsh bailed on Boston as soon as he possibly could, lobbying hard for the Labor Secretary job well before the 2020 election. He’s out of most Bostonians’ consciousness, probably because he went from Washington to Toronto, where he’s now head of the NHL Players’ Association. I don’t think getting an endorsement from a man who doesn’t even live in the United States of America is a great way to prove what a real Bostonian you are, but I don’t work for the Kraft campaign.

And then there’s Walsh’s record. He started his term by trying to throw a ton of our money at the IOC with an Olympics bid, then tried the same thing with a Formula 1 race in the Seaport. Thwarted in both attempts to throw public money at a private entity and get nothing back, he then got together with Republican governor Charlie Baker to throw a bunch of public money at GE to facilitate their building their headquarters here! Which never happened! But at least he made the most cringe video of all time, walking around the Common in a faux-fur jacket and shades while Adele’s “Hello” played, which was somehow supposed to celebrate the bipartisan effort to pad GE’s bottom line with our money.

(The video has disappeared from the internet, but I KNOW someone has a copy. If it’s you, send it to me. I beg you.)

And then there’s Walsh’s utter contempt for the Boston Public Schools, which culminated in him appointing the laughably unqualified Laura Perille as Superintendent. (She had literally never worked in a school!) Perille’s notable achievement in her time on the job was lying about the condition of the former West Roxbury High building. “OMG it’s totally unsafe we have to close it now!” she proclaimed in October 2018. Nearly seven years later, it’s still standing like Elton John, and still in use by the Boston Police!

Some folks have forgotten about this, but a lot of very vocal and extremely online people in Boston (the “ten people on Twitter” Walsh blamed for undermining his plan to bring the Olympics to Boston) have not. You wanna remind us of the Walsh administration? PLEASE, Josh. DO IT.

bintang timur (2017)

1. hari ini cuma terjadi sekali dalam setahun. tanggal dua puluh, tanggal lima belas, kamu mengecat tembok rumah menjadi hijau. biru, kataku. tapi hijau itu biru. kamu bersikeras.

2. aku menulis puisi di atas tumpahan kopimu di tanggal tujuh belas kamu benci kopi, aku punya selusin kopi instan yang kusembunyikan diantara peta-peta bintangmu. aku tidak pandai sembunyi.

3. enam, tujuh tahun kau tinggal di atap rumah. bintang di timur sana, katamu yakin. kita akan pindah ke timur! tapi ia pandai sembunyi.

4. tanggal enam belas, aku sengaja menumpahkan kopi di atas peta bintangmu, bersama sebuah kalimat pendek:

hiduplah bersama siang!