It’s funny, ever since I got back from Hajj, my prayers have changed. Before, I would often go into autopilot when I’d be praying. It’s hard not to. We memorize the whole prayer, it’s formal and prescribed as such, there’s only a few spots for spontaneity. I used to wonder why. But over the years [...]

I confess, I’m not that surprised about the current broohaha in some circles over the loss of ‘Merry Christmas’ greetings. I suspect the majority is starting to feel under siege and they’re tired of political correctness. When I think of Christmas what is seared into my memory is the first grade teacher who insisted I write [...]

Sometimes my daughters read my blog and they often tell me if I’ve crossed over any lines. It’s unfortunate that in written communication especially, it’s so easy to misconstrue tone and meaning to people’s words. I’ve stopped responding to people’s good news via email with a ‘Good for you’, because I figure it can so [...]

I had a very interesting evening. Took a moment away from organizing this British trip (my Mom’s decided to come along as well as my sister!) and watched Oprah’s show on visionaries. Here it’s on every Sunday night at 8 pm on OWN. Tonight was James Cameron, the guy who did Terminator, Titanic and Avatar. [...]

I keep forgetting. Honestly, I’ll go most of the day completely unaware that I wear hijab, have brown skin, and otherwise look any different from anyone else and then suddenly something will bring me up short. I’ll see myself reflected in a shop window or someone will say something  like acknowledging how ‘tolerant’ they are [...]

It’s ironic that I would feel like I’ve kind of ‘made it’ when I received my first hate email a little while back. My first thought was, “I must have done something right!” And my second thought was, “What if this person is right about me?” I have seen too many people delude themselves. These are [...]

And my brain feels like mush. Omigosh have I ever matured in the way I deal with people. A while ago, a contentious issue arose during some discussions I was having with some people where it was myself against everyone else in the room. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to defend my perspective like [...]

Everyone should watch a movie in a cramped airline seat, with a six or four inch monitor, however big it is, and with lousy ear plugs. That way, they can really tell if a movie is any good. I always tend to watch movies after the hype has died down somewhat. I wasn’t very curious [...]

What an experience! I’m glad I didn’t know that I could have become a librarian when I was a kid, because if I’d become a librarian, I never would have bothered being a writer, I think. I’d have been having too much fun just reading all those fantastic books! It wasn’t the first library convention [...]

I know it’s not spelled ‘immigrunt’ but today I felt like a real ‘immigrunt’, not an immigrant. I just had one of those days when everything stupid you could possibly do, gets done. It started with Friday, when I went to a school to drop off eleven books some kids had bought. The librarian had [...]