Life

Elena

When you are writing a series it is fatal to stop. If it takes too long between episodes readers, even the most avid fans, tend to lose track of the story. When you take as long as I have this time they lose interest completely. So it is with a very humble amount of hope of recovering my readers’ interest that I am writing this piece. The only thing I have going for me is that I write in a genre in which the plot and coherence of a story matters little. What matters is how well the writing conveys sex. Basically if the reader is turned on by what I write I have succeeded. So I will give you a Christmas episode from a while back that I have wanted to share for a long time and now that I am free from the linear confines of diary writing I will indulge you.>>>

قهرمانان

آقا این واقعاً چیز عجیبی است، از آن روزی که ما پا را توی این آمریکا گذاشتیم، از هر پنج مرد ایرانی که ملاقات کردیم، دوتاشون ادعا داشتند که در ایران قهرمان شنا بوده واز دست شاهپورغلامرضا (ع) یا فلان تیمسار مدال قهرمانی گرفته اند! قول میدهم برای شما هم یکی دوبار این اتفاق افتاده باشد. آدم از تعداد قهرمانان گمنام آن مملکت مبهوت میشود! اولین سئوالی که پیش میاید آنستکه چرا اصولاً ارتش در کار شنا و ورزش دخالت میکرد، و اگر خیلی عرضه داشت زیر کون خودش را باید بیل میزد، که تحت توجهات ملوکانه کار مملکت به اینجا نکشد؟ غلط عرض میکنم؟>>>

اسرار و احتیاجات

با شنوندۀ ارجمند بعدی گفتگویی خواهیم داشت. رادبو مرز پر گهر، بفرمایید.
الو با من هستین؟
بله خانم بفرمایید.
سلام آقای دکتر. ممنون از وقتی که به من دادین.
خواهش میکنم بفرمایید.
آقای دکتر من یه مشکلی با پسر شیش ماهم دارم.
بله بله.
بله آقای دکتر. تا یکی دو ماه اول خوب شیر میخورد. ولی بعد از اون شروع کرد بازی درآوردن.
خودتون بهش شیر میدین؟ >>>

Persian woman’s mind flying

And here I am, listening to the opera letting it penetrate my soul, and relaxing my mind, it is about love I know this one song, she is totally in love, I am thinking we should cherish the moments we were or are in love. Let the positive thought and the feeling of ”yes I am able to love” be dominating. This way I as a woman will be easier with myself and consequently with everyone around me and when another woman tells me what a wonderful time she has had I can rejoice and be really really happy for her and not let the martyr feeling come out and get frustrated. We women often have a lot of frustrations which is related to our cultural background but who doesn’t>>>

Unconquered sun

So is it merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah or merry Kwanzaa? This year, let us celebrate it for what it really is. It was originally the Yule or Yalda festival meant to commemorate the birth of the Sun God Mithra. Perhaps it had something to do with the Ice Age, which bedeviled ancient Nature Worshippers for so long that the day following the Winter Solstice, when days start getting longer, the day when light is born again, that day, the 23rd of December, was the happiest day of the year for our freezing pagan ancestors and celebrated accordingly.>>>

Confessions of a Secret Agent

When I first began "blogging" here (or more accurately, "threading") about two months ago, I had to defend my right to speak, because I was not an Iranian. It was hard, and sometimes painful, to hold my ground. But I knew I had finally arrived when I began to be accused of being a secret agent of various governments and organizations. I was “in”, I was accepted, I was one of the family. I met this victory with an odd mixture of satisfaction, frustration, and occasional despair. Recently these accusations have been popping up left and right, and I mean literally left and right, because I am now apparently both a Hezbolaahi and a Zionist agent

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Happiest thing

In a quiet middle-class suburb of Tehran in 1975, three friends attended a co-ed middle school. Amir, Maryam, and Morteza were 13. Inseparable at school and after school, the three friends were known as “The Three Musketeers,” creating havoc at school, playing games and sports together, and hanging out in nearby shops and eateries. Maryam was a beautiful tomboy, with long auburn hair and freckles, Amir a lanky, blue-eyed terror, and Morteza was the dark and mysterious bookworm whose attraction to the other two nobody understood. Seventh grade passed quickly with minor reprimands from school authorities and parents and more laughter than the group would experience in the years to come>>>

Finally, baby

My nails have gone into a shock. This is the unbelievable fact that the doctors have agreed upon. There are some weird looking lines and dents on my nails due to a trauma. And guess what. That trauma was my delivery. I have such a dramatic, unique delivery experience that I finally decided to write about it. It would be hard to do a full spiel version of it for every single one of my friends over the phone. Plus I figure the story can be entertaining and may be useful for the rest of the world who don't know me!>>>

Three Kings

I watched the PBS documentary on the three kings and their travels to Bethlehem. Although well presented, it is interesting to note how much one's perspective, in this case the Christian world view, clouds the lens. Before I start, let me assure you that in no way I'm making parallels to the current situation, countries or people. These events occurred when the world was a different place altogether. That the travelers came from Persia, that they were Zoroastrian Magi following a dream interpretation, conjectured the astrological heavens and brought gifts is straightforward. But the historical setting was touched upon gently. The impression that these priests were acting on their own or at least in isolation, however, is not plausible.>>>

Wanting more out of life

The novel takes place in revolutionary times, in fact about a couple of years after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. It was the time that major aspects of the society underwent pretty drastic transformations. Attacks on basic freedoms of the people had already started and the mere audacity of the regime to go places that no other dictatorship had gone before (to borrow from Star Trek) had created a funny and ironic situation. People couldn't believe that not only were they not getting the things for which they had fought so hard, but they were losing some of the things that they had pretty much taken for granted for such a long time. That gave people sort of that deer caught in the headlights look. It was the time of major interruptions in the people's lives>>>

I am going to break these walls

I am going to break these walls
I am going to be the fuel of fire
Watch me dancing seductively
I am the flame of a wild burning candle
These nights are begging…
Begging for my heat

These long kept emotions are begging
Begging for me to set them free >>>

Me and Persian businesses

Persian culture has never ceased to surprise me. Ever since I came to Los Angeles, the number of such cases has increased exponentially!!! And so has been the fun of ever increasing shock! When I first came to Los Angeles, I learned that Iranians are an integral part of the business in the society. Any normal person would think:” Oh wonderful! I'm sure people of my land are more sympathetic, as we experience the same feelings in exile.“ Alas I was so damned wrong! I don’t want to bore you by going through the details of my unfortunate events with Iranian-based businesses, so I confine myself to the world of beautification.>>>

How time flies

...>>>

Being Iranian.com

When a site grows as large as Iranian.com, it is only a matter of time before some archive rat comes along to dig out long-forgotten pieces to see the light of day again. And what the rat drags out we will call “Best of Iranian.com.” This archive rat started digging in 2006. My idea was to put together a “Best of…” covering the site to the end of that year – which I did. By 2007 the new site was going to be up and running “any day” and it made sense to wait and inaugurate “Best of…” in the new site. Well… that took a while. >>>

ملاقات پس از کشتار ۶۷

آذرماه ۶۷. بالاخره بعد از گذشت هفت ماه، موفق به دیدار خانواده شدم. مادربزرگم، مادرم و پدرم به ملاقات آمده بودند. بیچاره مادرم فکرمی‌کرد که اعدام شده‌ام. بارها مراجعه کرده بود. به او گفته بودند که ملاقات ندارد یا این‌جا نیست تا این که نامه‌ام را دریافت کرده بود. مادرم اشک می‌ریخت. سراغ مرتضی مدنی را گرفت. با چشمانی اشک‌بار پرسید که آیا از او خبری دارم یا نه؟ هنوز پاسخ نداده بودم، گفت: ملاقات ندارد، دل‌مان شور می‌زند. دلم هری ریخت پایین. به خودم دلداری می‌دادم که شاید زنده مانده باشد. با هم بزرگ شده بودیم. بعد از انقلاب دیگر کم‌تر از هم جدا می‌شدیم. روز پنج مهر دستگیر شده بود درحالی که تا چند لحظه‌ قبل از دستگیری در کنارم بود.>>>

Jazireye Gilligan

Like every Iranian kid of my generation whose family could afford a TV, I grew up watching Gilligan's Island in Farsi on Iranian TV. Not only that, we grew up to know every Disney character of the era, enjoyed watching Bewitched, Payton Place, Lost in Space, Wild Wild West, Flintstones, even Get Smart, all in Farsi. We grew up seeing every worthy Hollywood production and any worthy European movie in Farsi – and sometimes getting somewhat creative in translations, even in musicals such as the Sound of Music. As a result, when about one hundred of us ended up at a university town in the northeast United States in the early 70’s, we did not feel socially foreign at all.>>>

100,000 good reasons

With countless examples of the heart and soul invested in building these nonprofits and the variety of proposals we received, you can imagine how difficult it was to decide which applications to select. This was compounded by the fact that the amount requested totaled over $1.4 million while our total grant-making budget was $100,000. PARSA CF staff reviewed all applications and divided them into two groups. To ensure broad participation and an objective evaluation process, we formed an independent Grant Advisory Committee comprised of individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences with community building>>>