I used to be quite the letter writer. I had a giant box of stationary that I would lovingly ration out for heartfelt snailmail to friends around the world. I’d start with the selection of the paper from my collection of Asian Korean stationary, looking for one whose absurdity would strike a chord with the recipient. There were tons to choose from. I remember Mr Toe – a little cartoony foot with a face. He actually had FIVE toes, so perhaps his name was a typo or just elitist. I didn’t care. He was awesome. Then I remember some kind of cutesy vampire girl that I used to pull out for my snarkier friends who would enjoy the idea of an adorable mythical cannibal. Some were selected for the ridiculous poetry inscribed on them like “If love were a disease you make me sick.” I’m sure in Korean or Japanese that makes perfect sense. In English, it made me giggle.

Paper selected, I’d grab a pen with appropriately matching technicolored ink, and sit down to think. Because writing was more thinking then the actual act. There is no edit-undo when you’re using pen and paper. Scratching things out looks bad. Using White-out on my wonderful pastel letter paper would just be pointless. So I would think. Where did we leave off? What are they up to? What do they need to hear from me? Was it exams they were bothered about? Or parents? Or the deeper mysteries of universe? How much of my own life should I share? What will make them laugh and give them some peace that though I’m far away, things are good?

I’d then proceed to write. I used to have horrid handwriting. The years penmanship was taught in school were the years my family was at their gypsy-most. I was barely in a classroom long enough to get suspended - though I didn't let that get in my way - let alone learn the fiddly art of legibility. But since then I’d tried to make up for the lack, and had cooked up my own cursive that was employed for my beloved correspondence. No other time could I put up with such a slow way to record my thoughts, but in this instance, I needed it. Shaping out those curlicues and making those pen-strokes kept my brain from outpacing my hand. I’ve always benefited from a time-lag. Makes a better, wittier, wiser me.

How long the letters took from start to finish, I don’t remember. I think until my hand gave out or the thought came to a natural break. But I know they were never short. Even then, I was the brain-in-overdrive, always bubbling, verbose smartass. If I was going to say something, damned if I’d do a hash job of it. Once all those thoughts were put to paper, I’d then patiently fold the letter into the shape of my selected envelope – a task harder than it sounds. Perhaps because my envelopes were equally ridiculous – funny shaped, bright colored – the equivalent of a postal firework. The letter would be slid inside, the envelope sealed, the addresses written and as a final stroke, stickers would be stuck and spoof stamps would be drawn on. I’d then walk the letter, or letters, over to my dad and entrust them to him to have them mailed off as soon as possible.

It’s been years now since I’ve written a proper letter. The time of paper and pen faded. Life became too hectic. For the writer and the recipients. I don’t remember who was the first not to respond. Probably me. But eventually the shiny snailmail trail dried out completely and no one had the energy to retrace it. I stopped collecting stationary and my existing box of bright absurdity was stored away in a dark corner, forgotten. By then, we all had email. And suddenly I was no longer lost. The coracle I’d ridden over the edge of the world when I left home at 18 was pulled back by the sticky strings of the Internet. Soon I was only an email away to all I’d taken my leave from and easily found by those I’d not.

For a while, that commitment to correspondence was converted over to the electric-mail. I had massively long Word documents on my computer, full of an unpunctuated stream of letters back and forth. The volume of wordage was only minimally structured with original letter received on the bottom and my response on the top. Some were deeply personal – hearts bleeding on electric paper. Others were stilted intellectual discourses on politics and theology. Many were therapy – for me or the friend. I’d try to make each one distinct. But as the letters piled up, I’m ashamed to say that the discerning reader of that file would notice repetition – paragraphs borrowed and used from one response to the other, jokes repeated, turn-of-phrase recycled. A habit that grew. A sign of my continuing decay perhaps.

Yet now it feels like I’ve reached the bottom of my well of words. I have an answer to that childhood question of “Does she ever run out of things to say?” Maybe. My mailbox is overflowing with unanswered emails. I’ve tried in vain to keep afloat, making sure I respond to the more pressing ones. Lives in crisis. Marriages, births, deaths announced. Support needed. Advice requested. Help petitioned. But now, I am barely doing that. Like a selfish crone, I continue to receive, but not give.

That, dear friend, is my long and drawn-out explanation as to why I have not written. Responded. Returned your kindness. It is not that I don’t wish to hear from you. I do. That bold-face, darkened background unread message is the gift wrapping of a welcome present to me. That I am remembered, if nothing else, is enough for this poor neurotic soul. But right now, I feel like I cannot give back in the same way. I cannot bring my eyes, my words and my heart into focus like I used to. And it is pride perhaps then that keeps me from sending back a response that is not up to the mark. I want you to remember me for who I was, not how I am feeling now.

Forgive me. And please have a little patience.

I've been staring at my blog document for the past five minutes. And I think I rather like the blank whiteness staring back at me. I'm not sure why I need to put those little squashed ant shapes on it and ruin it. For what? What would I get out of making concrete the chaotic swirlings in my head. If I don't bring them into focus, then I can keep pretending they don't exist.

So rather than try and pull a thought from my tangled mind - which would be akin to attempting to defuse a bomb with your eyes closed - I'm gonna turn the mic over to yous. What's up. How you doin? What's new? And if you don't mind my asking, uh, why are you here? And what's your favorite Degrouchyowl entry?

*crawls away*

On my messenger, the day before I flew out to Europe for the second time in two weeks:

“Have a safe trip Owl. Try not to get any new scars.”

Funny way to say goodbye. But I suppose apt. If there’s anything this anti-materialistic Spartan collects, it’s scars. I kind of have a lot of them. They riddle my body, a range of dots and dashes that spell out in their own Morse code the story of my life. Hey, it’s easier on the luggage weight restriction that binds my moves than souvenir snowglobes.

So you can read my life in scar tissue. Some marks speak louder than others. The shiny thick line across my knee when I fell off my bike and landed on a shard of glass at a picnic – I remember the big girl who came to my rescue, picked me up, cradled me to her chest as she ran to my parents. Her name is Saima and she will forever be my hero. The pink bubble-gum looking scar on my wrist that I got for not listening to my doctors about taking it easy after surgery – long since my mother’s Exhibit Number 1 for "How Owl never takes care of herself." The concave dent in my shin from the day I got knocked off my bike on my way to uni – now a permanent reminder of what can happen when I don’t slow down. The little half-moons on my arm from when I was teaching my best friend how to rollerskate and in her nervous fear, she dug her nails into the hand that was holding her up. The still-red gash across my side where I brushed up against some broken ceramic and got my first emergency room-worthy trauma and undeniable proof of my mortality.

For others, the stories, like the scars, have begun to fade. I can still see the marks, if I look closely, but I have to think hard to know where they came from. The long straight line down my ring finger I never even notice, but if I try I remember the sticky afternoon when the neighbor’s dog who I’d loved forever one day snapped and bit me. A small line over my left eyebrow came from some over-exuberant playing with a buck-toothed friend. The dent at the back of my leg I probably got from a bike pedal but I can’t recall the actual injury. The discoloration on the back of my hand from a burn a dinner party last year where I was trying too hard to do too much. The countless little flecks of shiny paleness that cover me, their origins long since forgotten, but their presence still noticeable if one chooses to see them.

There is nothing much I can do about any of them. They are there. They show. I’ve long since given up trying to hide them from sight. The strategically-placed accessories and concealing make up have been left by the wayside. Lotions don’t do much to fade them either. Only time. Same goes for scars on the inside. You can bathe them with faith, patience, hindsight, rationalization, and acceptance. Hide them with smiles and smother them with new successes. But it doesn’t make them any less present. They exist. Though I’ve never cracked my own ribcage to peer inside, I wouldn’t be surprised to see my heart covered in the same shiny seams that crisscross my body. And like the ones I see on the outside, those inside have become part of me. I barely notice them any more. In the way my fingerprints hold my identity, my scars are just a pattern that is the encryption of my history, forgotten until accidentally touched again. Then that disquieting numbness or the still raw nerves beneath throb to life and refresh the memory.

Scar tissue doesn’t just grow. It’s created. And not through joy, but pain. I guess I’ve had a lot of that. But then, it’s proof that I’ve lived. Rather scarred, then scared.

(Breakfast of champions: 3 cups of tea, 1 cup weak of coffee, 2 Tylenol extras and 1 tablet migraine medication. Put it all together in one zero-carb, empty-stomached, sleep-deprived little rabble rouser and you get something green, jittery, and absurd. But awake. And relatively unpained. *hork*)

(Also, when I grow up and become a REAL writer, instead of the jargon mercenary I am today, I should like to be Caitlin Moran. Except that, everything I want to say, she's said it already. And infinitely better. I challenge you to read this and NOT fall out of your chair or make horrid snorking noises trying not to guffaw in your office, like I did. *swoons*)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/caitlin_moran/article5252732.ece

It’s been a week without a proper update. And it’s not from lack of trying. I’ve got a few started, but nothing finished. I don’t know if it’s my attention span that’s fizzling out on me mid-way, my skill, or just my desire. Whatever the case, the end result is a bunch of half-baked thoughts on nothing. Not that the rest of the blog is earth-shattering. But I like to pretend there’s some standard in place here. Even if I can only sum it up as “Must contain lots of words.” Yep, in the wordcount department, I am proud to say never has a reader been short-changed. Hope though they may.

But if I don’t write an update now, there won’t be one for a while coming. You see, I’m travelling again. This time to Germany. And though press trips sound like such fun when you sign on – fully comp-ed travel, interesting events, important people, special treatment, etc – it’s never a holiday. You’re run off your feet from early morning to late night, and have to constantly be 'on'. I can do the extrovert thing for a while, but after a couple 18-hour days of having to hold myself up-right, smile, shmooze, pay attention, ask intelligent questions and be charming, I get very tired. I want nothing more than to hide in bed with a book for a few years. So it's either this poor update, or nothing for another week till I'm back and recovered from that tapping out.

Because, you know, no matter how seamlessly I play the part of the extrovert, it never ceases to be a Herculean effort. Deep down inside, I’m still very shy. At least, I think I am. It’s getting harder and harder for me to convince people of this. They think it’s one from my bottomless bag of jokes. If I admit that I’m actually quite anti-social, very uncertain, prone to stage-fright, mildly agoraphobic and often quiet, they laugh as if I’m telling a corker of a gag. 0_0

Like today at work, when my boss and I had a powwow about one of my staffers. The writer, once again, had fallen short of the mark. He did not know how to get the information he wanted from tight-lipped officials. He had no idea how to intimidate and manipulate the PR handlers that came between him and his source. He couldn’t come up with contingency plans and had no fight in him. “The fellow doesn’t understand that if he doesn’t make a nuisance of himself, we’ll never get the answers! I had to give him a crash course in Machiavelli but even still, he looks like a deer caught in headlights,” I complained to the boss. “I know,” came his response. “I really don’t think he’s cut out for this industry like we are." “Hey boss, if I can do it, he can do it,” I replied in utter seriousness. “Oh yes, such an unassertive little shrinking violet you are!” he answered with a loud laugh and wandered off to the tea room, leaving me no opportunity to do my usual "I’M SHY DAMNIT!”

But I am. When I don’t have to talk, I often won’t. When I’m not at the office, where one is expected to be friendly and engaging. When I’m not dealing with friends/family who are quieter and more awkward. When I’m not left in a room full of people too boring and passive to start a conversation. When I’m not expected to be ‘on’ – Owl the open-book, heart-on-my-sleeve, world travelling story-teller. When it’s not important that barriers be broken down as quickly as possible. When I'm not the only person willing to stick their neck out. When I’m not asked to counsel, share or mediate. When I am left to my own devices, and nothing is asked of me, I am still. Lost in my own thoughts. Hiding behind my eyes. Quiet.

Back when I was a kid, and not so good at flipping that switch, my Abez used to say to me “Fake it till you make it.” Can it be that I’ve made it?

I am generally a super chill kinda girl. I’m the world’s cheapest date. A low maintenance female. I don’t yell, fuss or do big drama. I’m never in a rage, and when I do get angry it’s never for long. I’m tolerant to the point of problematic. I find something beautiful and lovable in practically everybody.

But there are some things, that if done, will wake a long-sleeping dragon within me. I USED to be hell on wheels – a sharp tongued little vigilante. In school I was known for making grown boys cry with mere words. I managed to cut a wide swathe in my inner city highschool with nothing more than my caustic tongue and razor-sharp criticality. Oh, and some good connections with burly sorts who’d knock heads if I asked it. But before you judge, let me say all of it was only ever used in defence – of myself or weaker others. It was a jungle out there. And though I put the dragon into hibernation a long time back - when I realized that being a Muslim meant being kind to others and staying one’s hand, or in my case their tongue - still, sometimes it surfaces…

It should go without saying that Russians are fond of their drink. Alcohol is a big part of the culture. So it stands to reason that my five days in Moscow would involve being around oceanic quantities of the stuff. Personally, I avoid being around people when they drink – not because I overtly worry other people’s unIslamic practices will rub off on me – but because I don’t like the smell and being the only sober person in a room full of drunks loses it’s funny rather fast. When I’m working though it’s not always doable. I’m often expected to be at cocktail parties and gala dinners where the bubbly flows freely. If attendance is mandatory, I’ll make an early appearance and disappear as quickly as I can. But in business trips like the Moscow one, it’s often impossible to steal away, and I’m forced to wait out the din.

Like I said though, I don’t mind that non-Muslims drink. It doesn't mean they're bad people. It’s not against their rules, only mine, and I don’t hold people to the standards I hold myself. As long as they do it a polite distance away and keep their drunken antics to benign stupidity instead of the unfortunate aggression and letchery that I’ve often seen, I couldn’t care less. But then, drinking for many really is about that loss of bigger inhibitions that I find so annoying.

So at the first night in Moscow, there was a cocktail party where the small army of journalists and PR people who’d been assembled from around the world were getting to know each other. And what the bottom of a shot glass looks like. In case, you know, they hadn’t seen it before. Committing it to memory we are this time, ‘struth! I’d come down with a contingent from the Middle East – most of whom were not drinkers. We had made the trip together, hung out at the airports and jointly went through the rigours of customs and security checks. We were all mainly Muslims or Arabs and kind of became a family. A few of the fellows in our little company had even decided that I was their patron saint, or mascot, or something, and went out of their way to make sure I was looked-after and sheltered. Sweet, though unnecessary, as they soon found out.

At that opening night party, the Iranian journalist in our group decided to do his own thing and fell facelong into the variety of haram food and drink options. Again, that was his prerogativ. But that he decided to get smashed and seek me out to ‘chat’ was another matter. I put up with his sloppy small talk for a few minutes before he crossed the line and put his hand on me. Non-Muslim men may often make the cultural faux pas of physical contact with a Muslim woman and I take no offence, but when a fellow Muslim does it – and one from Iran no less – it’s no accident. I pulled away and retreated back to the group, putting one of my ‘guardian colleagues’ between myself and the over friendly fellow. He eventually found himself a more willing victim and wandereed off.

The next day at lunch, the guy met me at the samovar, looking rather ill. He asked me how I was, and I replied and returned the greeting. “I’m not so good. I’ve a terrible headache. From last night. You know,” he said with an unapologetic grin. Oh. Hell. No. Dude made the choice to drink, go overboard, and cross a line, and then expects sympathy from me? Even if he hadn’t gotten gross, did he really think a practicing Muslim woman was the right person to commiserate a hangover with? “Yeah?” I answered. “Funny, I don’t seem to have that problem.” I said, still polite, but not amused. He grinned. “Oh, well, I’m sure you have OTHER sorts of problems. From abstaining. You know,” he answered, looking me up and down.

And that, my dears, woke the sleeping dragon. I am quite sick of people hinting that my ‘puritanism’ stifles me, making me some kind of stale nun, or fuels a bitter passive aggressive frustration. I choose my morality. I love my religion. And believe you me, the fact that I’ve never drank has not in any way stunted my personal development. I have never needed dutch courage or a few drinks to discover my charm. I’ve got wit and confidence on my own and don’t need the benefit of a chemical disinhibitor to have fun.

“Really?” I asked, my tone still chatty but my open-faced geniality leaving. “I don’t think so. But then maybe I’m just not as smart as you. Because I definitely need all those braincells that you’ve been so happily killing off. And I kind of like having a well functioning liver and fresh breath. And come to think of it,” I added as a near afterthought, “I’m quite fond of my dignity,” now looking him dead in the eye, utterly unimpressed.

At this point, that greasy smile on his face had begun to fade. His mouth had fallen slightly open and his eyes and gone round, losing the focussed tightness at the edges his grin had lent them. “Ah. Yes. Well. You know,” he mumbled. “No, apparently I don’t. You’re obviously just terribly smart.” I walked back to my table. A few minutes later, he appeared there as well. He absently took the seat in front of me, looking stunned. As he fumbled with his cutlery a waiter soon appeared at his elbow, a discrete bottle of wine in each hand, and asked him which he’d be having. The Iranian journalist, so fond of the tipple last night, swallowed a bit before he looked over at me, and smiled a now much deflated smile and answered the server. “None thanks. I think I need my braincells.”

Indeed.

I know I’d swore I wouldn’t put on my traveling shoes for at least six months after I touched down. I’d had enough – 4 countries and a dozen cities in less than two years. I was done with jetlag. No more stiff neck from sleeping upright in airplanes, trains and buses. My aching back couldn’t take all the sofa-surfing and bed hopping I’d been doing. When I got back “home” – wherever that ended up being this time around – I would hold still good and proper.

Turns out it’s impossible for me to say no to free travel - a short explanation as to why I’m in Moscow right now. Which is pretty cool - the location not the defense. It’s freezing cold outside and it rains all the time, but that makes it even better. I just need to be told I can have nothing to eat but bread, salt and vodka, and I’ll be a happy camper. A silly camper – what is it about fairytales and stereotypes that are so fun to me – but happy all the same. Remember you’re reading the blog of the girl who thought it would be cool to get malaria in the rain forest of Costa Rica, a tattoo in San Francisco, an accent in London, a burqa in Pakistan and a camel in the UAE. I’ve always been prone to good marketing.

But Moscow isn’t the stereotype I was expecting at all. The roads aren’t desolate save for ancient weirdly shaped clunkers held together with Soviet ingenuity and will power – there are new Mitsubishis and luxury cars liberally sprayed in the mix. And while crowded and cold, like my James Bond-brained washed mind was expecting, the people aren’t muffling themselves from the weather with giant fur hats, ill fitting trenchcoats and an apathy induced numbness. They’re in stiletto knee length boots – the women anyways – below short skirts and well-cut jackets. The men don’t look like they’ve spent any time in the Gulag – unless starvation doesn’t only just produce model-like builds but also great dress sense. There is the odd ‘could have been on the cover of a Dostoyevsky novel’ looking chap – weather beaten, small, round, shabby and depressed – but he’s the minority. Everyone else looks busy, snazzy, and fashionably underweight.

Which brings me to my next thought – What the hell were all those people who insisted I looked Russian smoking? I grew up in Chicago and it has a huge Russian community. Well, it has a huge community from every country that has at least two citizens to rub together. But that’s besides the point. Unless it IS the point. Because even though the city was full of proper Russians, and tons of every thing else, the one nationality I was guessed as being more than anything was some kinda former USSR native. Before I started wearing hijab I was either Russian or generic white American. After hijab, it was Russian or Bosnian – which I took as an affront on behalf of the Bosnians, who are the world’s most naturally beautiful people.

But, so far as I can see, if Russians all look like, you know, Anna Kornikova and Mikhail Baryshnikov, then I aint of them. Unless, I am to make something of the fact that all those folks never specified whether it was Anna or Mikhail I was supposedly channeling. 0_o Though, I can SORT of see where the Russian label came from. I’m kind of pale with dark hair and dark eyes. By process of elimination, that lands my origin from the Caucuses. I’m not olivey enough to be Mediterranean, my eyes are too heavily lidded for me to be Oriental, and I’m not shaped like the paler Arabs. But why specifically Central Asian? They say it’s something about my cheek bones but I don’t believe it. I personally think it’s my nose. Being mixed race, I ended up with a hybrid – one that combines my mom’s angular anglo with my dad’s Pakistani potato. Mine is crooked, looking aquiline from one side, and slightly upturned in that Anglo way from the other. Those guessing me as Russian must be splitting the difference.

Having now spent three days in Moscow, I can confidently say I do NOT look Russian - male or female. They're both too pretty. Unless the Russians aren’t looking like themselves anymore. Which I can sort of believe, as Moscow isn’t looking like a spy movie any more either. I blame it on the McDonalds. I counted five from the airport to my hotel. And that stuff’s toxic enough to make anything mutate. Though I have to say, if it’s turning people who look like me into people who look like Maria Sharipova, maybe I should order a Big Mac. Super sized.

Coming back from that very large and self absorbed tangent - an atypical writing element for me that must come directly with my hanging out with Knicq Bhai, As I was saying Moscow is cool. Figuratively, but more literally. As in cold. As in, I just came from the desert so you coulda chilled my bones opening up the fridge and saved yourself my airfare. But that’s ok. Cuz you know what the press pack includes this time around? Beyond pamphlets, USBs full of data, CDs with interactive slide shows – I got…a parka. Like a furry, hooded, Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man, of a coat. Oh, and a knit scarf. These guys are good. I’m not sure I’m gonna wear either, but then I haven’t been out in the city properly yet. I may come off my fashionista high horse once my nose becomes an ice cube and my fingers go blue.

And plus, I find the cold kind of useful. It keeps you from slipping into that daze that Moscow seems to put me in. You see, it’s been a long long time since I traveled to a place where I couldn’t read the local language. Even if I can’t speak the lingo, for the past couple years I’ve atleast been able to sound out words. I know the scripts if nothing else. But I know zilch of Cyrillic. Which my brain juts cannot accept. Everywhere I turn, I’m confronted by huge signs in a language that is teasingly similar enough for my brain to begin it’s unasked attempts at decryption. I abstractly start to try and read things, but in the middle of a few letters that I recognize, there’s like an escaped paisley or ampersand or somesuch screwing up the works. And my brain goes “Whaaa?” and tries again. But no dice. It’s like when you’re dreaming, and you try read something – you may get a few words in but things start to morph and shift and nothing makes sense. Seeing Cyrillic all over the place is the same – I can join a few letters together, but not enough to get the whole thing, and that’s rather frustrating to my super nerdy and stubborn subconscious.

So, to sum up for ya'lls who couldn't stomach my meandering verbosity: Russia is full of beautiful people who don’t look a thing like me, wearing boots that I envy, walking past signs I can’t read, in weather I can’t abide. Eating McDonalds. Or Muk&$@)+ or however it’s written in Cyrillic. Which is pretty damn awesome.