It is so easy to live only for yourself when you are alone. And worry only about your own piddling worries. And care only about your own concerns. How quickly you become a self-absorbed little narcissist who tells charming stories about their over-exagerrated angst.

Or, me anyways.

That is, until the family and friends who you'd rudely taken leave of so many months ago, calls to remind you of what REAL troubles are. And suddenly, being thought naive by your peers, and the unfairness of constant cold and wet weather, seems more than a little absurd.

I get asked fairly often what I want out of my life. Me - a seeming carefree, single, professional. The questioner usually looks a bit grim and sceptical, like they are waiting for a punch they know is coming. I think I'm expected to say - I already have it all.

But really, I don't. A life alone is so small. But worse than that, it's small but you live it large. Because it's all you have. So your tiny woes get magnified. Your needs and wants balloon out of control. You are the center and only citizen of your own universe. And though you have friends, and though somewhere you have family, still it is only yourself that you are forced to look after.

I know I don't want to stay alone. It is so meaningless, to live only for yourself. We are our best when we give of ourselves. When we share and serve. When we love.

So maybe I'll start a hijab shop when I get back to the UAE. It would sell breathable, non-ear-crushing head-gear that don't need pins and stay put when you're playing sports. And cookies. Cuz everyone loves cookies :)

This would solve my current dilemma - what the hell am I gonna do when my dream-job ends. By dream-job I of course mean my year-long science journalism fellowship, where a poshy university pays me to be pretend to be a college kid - without the risk of failure. This experience may have ruined me for all other jobs. Sigh.

But come the middle of May, this dream goes up in smoke and I'll be rudely returned to the real world. Then comes the unsavory task of finding something else to do. Somewhere else to go. And someone else to be. Bleck.

I guess first I have to decide which geographic region should I aim for. There's the non-Muslim Western World, which is my least favorite but has the most job opportunities. Everyone is telling me to stay on in the US, which would be great for my social life and my career, but bad for my personal peace of mind and my faith. Then there's back to the Arabian Gulf, which is an easy option but a non-challenging one with little personal or professional fulfillment, though I do have some awesome people in the UAE who I miss and want to see again. And lastly, there's the Adventuresome Adventures option, where I take on one of the enticing offers I've received for the Far East and some war zones, which I like but scare the bejesus out of my parents. They think either I'll get blown up, or remain unmarried forEVER. It's a toss-up as to what they think is worse. ;)

Then I have to look at what part of my profession should I delve into. Do I try and take this science journalism thing further and deeper? I kind of think of myself as a sham science journalist - I've been deemed The Least Nerdy in my fellowship because science is only my job, not my passion, hobby or favorite food group. I worry that I couldn't really cut it as a science journalist in a more competitive environment where there's more critical analysis of my work. But to go back into main stream media after supposedly fast-tracking my climb up the career ladder with this fellowship seems a big waste. And yet I must admit, I am more in my element behind the desk, and politics and regional affairs are more my thing than anything else. So I have to decide whether to go back to being a generalist and pick from the broader options that are available in that area, or push further with the science thing, where there are fewer job openings.

And once I've made my decisions - which ambivalent me is no where near to - then comes the hard part. Getting someone to give me a good job. Boo. That hijab/cookie shop is looking better and better.

I survived high school in America with my hijab on. Then I kept it when I moved to Pakistan and everyone told me "you'll never get married with that thing on your head!" (which I've yet to prove wrong, but that's beyond the point). I managed to get my first job with it firmly bolted in place. I held tight to it when I moved to the land of over-dressed yuppies (aka the UAE). And I'm still in hijab today.

So I find it pretty funny and kinda ironic that after surviving society, vanity, fear, persecution and personal weakness, my hijab is facing its biggest threat of all. LOGISTICS. That's what Yasminay and I dubbed it. Simply put, I am fed up with fussing with the thing.

When I'm getting dressed in the morning, I spend more time trying to find a matching scarf than I do deciding what to wear. Then, given the size, weight and texture of the scarf fabric - I've gotta figure out how to wrap it. That takes a number of tries before I get it right, with the appropriate tightness to hold it in place, but still loose enough so my ears can breathe, with all the necessary bits of me covered and the scarf's ends firmly in place. It takes a mess-load of pins to do that, most of which end up stabbing me in the head at least once.

Yet no matter how firmly I wrap the thing in the morning, it's going to disintegrate anyways. Eating, talking, putting my bike helmet on, and movement in general all loosen it up. That leaves me constantly pulling at it, trying to put it back in place, or tuck escaping hairs back in, or move it off my poor dented ears. And then of course, when I wash up for prayer I take the whole thing off and have to put it back on again. Vat drrama!

Oh, and I have mentioned hijab and sports? That's the worst. If you wear your scarf the traditional way, then you don't have any peripherial vision. You kinda need that when you're trying to catch a pass, or avoid an opponent, or not crash into a goal-post. ;) So I usually tie my scarf pirate-style when I'm playing sports. But that's a bit perilous, as i found out during football last week. It was a no-contact game, to respect Islamic values, but that didn't stop my defender from accidentally knocking my hijab off when he tried to intercept my pass. I doubt he even realized what he'd done, I'd pulled it back on so quickly, but man was I annoyed. Not at him, because it was an accident and I chose to play the game, but at my damned hijab that wouldn't stay put. I just wanted to yank it off and carry on playing unemcumbered.

So is this some very long drawn out confession of de-hijabifying. Nah. I like my hijab. It's served its purpose well all these years and has never hurt me. It forces me to check my behaviour and reminds others of the commitment I made to my religion. It makes me a bigger person than I am, and that's always a good thing.

I just wish someone would invent the Spray-On Hijab - a covering so foolproof and simple I could just put it on in the morning and not have to give it a second thought. I wouldn't care if it looked dumb, or didn't have the range of colors and styles my scarves have. As long as it did its thing, without drama, I would be a happy man.

If impatience was the virtue, I woulda been set from the get-go. I barely dipped my toe into the rapids of teenage-dom before I cannon-balled into the deep waters of adulthood. By the time I was 19, I had a career, a savings account, and mad responsibility. So it kind of makes sense that at the tailend of my 25th year alive, I’m well into a mid-life crisis. And no, mine is NOT the quarterlife crisis of recent fame. I’m not reconsidering my career choice or leaving behind childhood fantasy to come to terms with reality. Nope. Mine is a mid-life crisis in the grand tradition of such crises. How do I know this? Partly, because I want a tattoo.

I do KNOW better. A tattoo is such a cry for attention. It’s like installing a billboard over your head that says “I want to be cool!.” Unless you’re Maori and it’s part of your tradition, or you’re a gangsta whose tat is a “if found (dead), please return to ____,” it’s pretty much a desperate prop. And as I don’t fit into either group, there’s really no reason for me to have one.

And yet I still want a tattoo. As if my acid personality, odd style, and cultural mishmashness wasn’t enough - I think I need to put a final nail in the coffin of convention. The last and most stubborn preconceived notion I grapple with when people meet me is my supposed innocence. Because I am a practicing Muslim, I obviously must be some naïve nincompoop who is ‘good’ only because it hasn’t occurred to her to be any other way. Wouldn’t a giant dragon on my cheek cure them of that?

Ignoring the glaring haramocity (Islam expressly forbids tattoos), just humor me. I can always dream can't I? So, if I was to get some ink, where should I put it? I don’t have much exposed flesh, and there’s no point in having a tat really if you can’t flash it. I’ve got my face, my hands, a bit of wrist, and my feet. None of those are traditional tat territory. Back in my brief scary teenage years, I did used to put henna designs on my face – arabesques around one eye, or vines curling up my neck. They weren’t very dark and probably looked more like a conveniently arrange birthmark, but I liked them. Or I think I could do one on my wrist, like a permanent bracelet.

And what should it be? It’s gotta be something I won’t get sick of looking at for the rest of my life. For ADD Girl, this could be a problem. I don’t get the same haircut twice, how am I going to deal with a permanent blob of body art? I guess I’d have to find something with a great meaning that isn’t transient. I do often write messages to myself on my hands, but they’re never anything I want to see for more than a day. The longest I probably ever had one on there was a particularly stressful week when I needed the reminder to “Be Still” written on the inside of my wrist. I do also regularly tell myself to “slow down,” “don’t panic,” “be happy” and “represent” - but I wonder how much of a headcase I must seem with personal instructions scrawled on my body. If you need an instruction manual to operate yourself, you probably don’t want other people to know that.

But hey, maybe that’s why everyone has their slogans and beliefs tattooed on in other languages – Chinese, Japanese, Elvish, Latin. You can write the most insipid thing in another language and it will always look cool. And it has the added benefit that if and when you ever get sick of that particular message, you can just make up a new meaning to your little pictograph and unless you’ve got Elf friends, no one will be the wiser. So following that line, I pair a short maxim with an exotic and ancient language I’m familiar with. In my case, it would probably be “No Fear” tattooed in Arabic on my hand. Which, now that I think of it, would NOT be the wisest thing to have visible when going through airport security. They’re bound to think it’s some kind of diabolical instructions.

Then I go down the image route. Again, there’s some difficulty. I know tattoos in general are already forbidden, but I wouldn’t want a DOUBLE HARAM by having my tat be of a living creature. First off, I dunno if I’d get the beef for having the artist draw a living image – something Muslims avoid. Secondly, even if that was ok, it’d be pretty damned inconvenient cuz I’d have to cover it up whenever I prayed. On a side note though, am I the only one who finds it really weird when fugly women have tattoos of gorgeous women put on them? What’s the logic – “my face may be ugly, but if you concentrate on my left bicep, you’ll have a nice view?”

So then it would have to be a pattern-type thing. Alas, no dragons. Which makes me sad cuz I love me some dragons. So I get a design on my face – cuz there’s no point in having what is in essence a bracelet tattooed on my wrist. I got plenty of bracelets at home, and I can change them as I like. But a design on my face or neck, that would be cool. I’d just have to make sure it doesn’t look like a rash or a scar of some kind. And I probably don’t want it to look ethnic, as that would completely pander to the whole ‘oppressed Moorish girl’ stereotype I work against. So it’d have to be modern – like camo spots. And I’d like it to trail around my neck and curl around my eyes. But wait a minute, this sounds familiar. I think someone’s already got the drop on me – Jadzia Dax. So in the end, I want a tattoo that will make me look like an alien with multiple personalities. Why bother? I already am.

Ok, maybe THIS is why Muslims don’t have tattoos. Cuz we’re too damned complicated and you need to be a fairly simple person to want a picture on your body all of your life. Sigh.

I’m not sure what to do with Degrouchyowl in order to keep it alive but still keeping me interested. I’ve got a terribly short attention span, and for this blog to have lasted as many years as it has is already an amazing feat. The secret to that – and my own life really – is constant reinvention. I can’t even remember how many times I changed layouts, blog skins, and writing styles. It’s how to keep Over-Ambitious ADD Girl excited and challenged at the same time.

So what that means this blog needs a makeover with a new purpose. I’ve already accomplished everything I set out to do when I started this – figure out what’s in my head, put what’s in my head on ‘paper’, and be able to let people see that ‘paper’ without dying of mortification. The blog was a practice run for the newspaper column/s I had, and really helpful at that. But now what? What new literary adventure should I embark on? What would you like to read Owl say/share? What should we morph into this time?

Alright. The peanut gallery has spoken. The blog must go on. But if it does, then it cannot be an effort - for I have no energy to spare. And it cannot be informative - for I have no brain power left. And it cannot be polite - because I am tired of pretense. It will be pure, unadulterated brainbarf. You will get to know Owl as you probably should never have known her. And you will probably forget the modulated and measured Owl who wrote all those years before. If you can handle that, then maybe I can keep this blog alive.

Hey kids. It's been a while again.

I'm not sure if degrouchyowl fills any role in my life any more. When I first started back in 2003, it was to polish my terribly jagged writing skills. Then it became a way to keep in contact with my friends around the world as I continued my rolling stone ways. And as I moved even further, it became a place where my family could touch base with me. I seem to have lost the thread of what this blog was about, and can't help but view it with a curious head-tilted wonder - why does this still exist, and why do I still update.

Don't be offended, dear 2.5 readers, I wonder a lot of things these days. And I'm sadly too lazy to pull those thoughts from my head and hold them up to the microscope of public judgment any more. Not just in blogging, but in life as well. I'm tired of trying to be understood. Either you get me, or you don't, and no amount of public evisceration seems to change that. I'm tired of trying to prove points. Though it's been a while since I argued anything on degrouchyowl, I did once aspire to make it my own little soapbox to set right the stupidities of the world. Now I may just be one of them. And I guess I'm tired of trying to catch my falling thoughts. They are fewer and farther between, and most of them run a worn circuit. You've heard them. I've heard them. Why bother?

This may be the end of degrouchyowl. Or I may just need a nap.