Somah's Blog

A New Beginning (David Edreesi Series) - Fiction

"David, we need to talk." 

Whenever my wife Cindy demanded to talk, you knew a pile of shit was about to be unloaded on you. That's how she broke the news of her pregnancy to me when we were in high school. She wanted to abort the baby (our daughter Stacy) and I talked her out of it. In hindsight, I wish she had carried on with her original plan. It's not that I hate my daughter; I just wish I never had children. What can I say, I was naïve back then.

That's also how she told me about her affair with Doug Hamilton--our next-door neighbor whose wife, Claire, was attacked and eaten by a mountain lion on one of her weekend jogs up in Runyan Canyon. "He was lonely and I was horny," she said. 

I said nothing. 

Doug later moved to Olympia, Washington, to stay with his folks. He never came back and Cindy's affair was officially over and the strain in our marriage was officially born.

The last time we had the "talk" was last year when she told me that she walked in on our daughter Stacy earlier that afternoon giving a blow job to the gardner. Horrified as I was, I actually felt bad for the gardner. If Stacy is anything like her mother in the sexual services department, that poor bastard must have had a really bad time.

Needless to say, I was a little alarmed at her prompt request. But I obliged, as I always did, and sat down on our living room sofa, bracing myself to be dumped on.

"I want a divorce," she said. It took me a minute to completely register her request. "Oh Cindy, what are you talking about?" I asked after an awkward moment of silence.

"Look, David, we are just not working out. We grew apart, that's all. We both deserve better," She said, her eyes darting around like the crazy homeless vet down on the street corner. "You mean you deserve better," I corrected her, refusing her pity. "Are you having another affair?" I asked, not really wanting to know. "That's not the point." she said. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally continued, "OK, yes there is another man. A co-worker. We're in love. It's about time I get out of this sham of a marriage anyway."

I said nothing. 

Completely shattered by the finality in her voice, I felt like I lost my footing and now slowly tipping over, frantically looking for something to hang on to but nothing was there. I'm about to free-fall into the abyss of inevitability yet I managed to say nothing.

"You really have no respect for me, do you?" I finally asked. Still falling. "I mean, I've done nothing but work my hardest to provide for you and your children. What did I do wrong?"

"Look, David, I know you're unhappy in this marriage as much as I am; you just don't realize it yet. You really need to take a good look at yourself. You let yourself go. Your ambitions, dreams--they're gone. I don't recognize you anymore. I haven't for years and it's only fair that we do something about it now."

What Cindy doesn't know is that I do realize that I've lost myself--I lost it to marriage and parenthood. Time with its gnawing tick-tocking is known to be the cruelest predator there is. It preyed on my fledgling dreams and sprouting ambitions mercilessly and without me even noticing. Defeated and consumed, I have carried out the motions and have done what was expected of me. I fulfilled my social obligations and betrayed myself. I forgave infidelity and tolerated adolescence antics, and in the end, I'm the one who gets dumped.

"OK, Cindy," I said. "I'm going to give you a divorce. And now that we're being honest, I'd like to tell you something."

"OK," she said. Having been the one who habitually walked all over me, Cindy wasn't exactly prepared for what I was about to say.

"Do you remember Doug? Doug Hamilton?"
"Yes, I do. David, what is this really--"
"He's dead. Heart attack."
"What? Oh my God. How do you know that?"
"Well, Alyson kept in touch with him." Alyson is Cindy's best friend in LA. They've been friends for ten years. "Really. Alyson never mentioned it. She would have told me. When did she tell you?"
"Last night after we fucked."

Cindy froze, her mouth a perfect O.

"You know, Alyson isn't only nice but she's a great lay. You could learn a thing or two from her. You don't want to drive the new guy away with your lousy heads."

She said nothing.

I left the house that night knowing that it was all over. I got in my car and for the first time in a long time, I wept.

Stardust by Joseph Kanon

A Poorly Written Great Story
My review on Amazon

I am extremely underwhelmed with Joseph Kanon's writing style. The story events don't flow well, mostly due to the poor structure of the paragraphs, and the chapters are too long for no apparent reason. Couple poorly structured paragraphs with long chapters and you have recipe for a wearisome read, and this sure was one.

The sad part, though, is that the story itself is really good, hence the three stars. Once I learned to look past the poor writing and lacking structure, which wasn't an easy feat, I was actually immersed in the story.

Set in Los Angeles in the second half of the 1940's, the story is about post-war excesses and fears. It's about the studio system back when they actually owned the talent that worked for them. It's about German Jews who survived the Nazis to find themselves under a more deleterious threat in America. It's about the war of ideas in the land of Free Expression.

The story, at its core, is really about the dichotomy in the character of the United States of America, where Hollywood stars were adored and hunted in the same measure and speaking out was encouraged unless it was a Commie propaganda. As a Los Angeleno, I found the background details and atmospheric descriptions of LA at that time especially interesting.

I can't in good faith recommend this book, but if you're not a stickler for good writing, it's actually a very compelling historical thriller

Complete Web Monitoring by Alistair Croll and Sean Power

Comprehensive, One Stop Shop for Achieving Complete End User Satisfaction
My review on Amazon

This book is ultimately about the End-User. The content of this book is designed to answer the following four questions (in order) about the End-Users:- What did they do?

- How did they do it?
- Why did they do it?
- Could they do it?

To answer the first question, a closer look at data warehouse and web analytics is in order. The authors talk about that in detail, listing tools and services that address various issues often faced in collecting user data. The second question, "how did they do it?" is answered through constant monitoring of your site's usability and engagement, both of which are explained well in this book. The third question is about user interaction and feedback. The authors attempt to answer this question by explaining the process of VOC, or Voice of Customer, and all the details it entails.

The most important content in this book, I believe, is laid out in the three chapters dedicated to answering the fourth question, "could they do it?"

The first chapter talks about Frontend Performance and End-User Experience. The topic of Frontend Performance is relatively new and the list of books dedicated to it is growing rapidly with Steve Souders' books on top of the list.

The second chapter tackles Synthetic Monitoring and its advantages and drawbacks. Following that, the authors move into Real User Monitoring in the third and last chapter attempting to answer this question.

The authors then dedicate what I think is too much content to communities and competitors and how monitoring them can help you better your site. Although the information is useful, I feel it took away from the focus of the book but not too much to be a distraction.

The authors then close the book with a recap and a look at the future of web monitoring. Both chapters are very useful and give a much needed perspective.

All in all, this is an excellent book for any serious web entrepreneur and for all online businesses that hold "User Experience" paramount in their business objectives.

I Hate My Life (David Edreesi Series) - Fiction

It's like I went to sleep and woke up thirteen years later, fat, balding and slightly retarded. What the hell happened to my life? All of a sudden I'm the proud father of two ungrateful, sexually active teenagers and the girl I knocked up in high school is now my bitter, sexually inactive wife? Are you kidding me? Bullshit. That's not how I'd planned my life. What happened to Art School or Med school or Law school? What happened to a career in art conservation and living in Antibes? How did I end up an accountant at some fourth-rate firm in downtown Los Angeles? What happened to me?

I catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror and I feel nausea consuming me. All I see is some semblance of my father--an uglier and fatter shadow of the old man squinting back at me with disgust and pity. I remember very clearly being terrified of having him drop me off at school because his weave was never put on right and my friends were cruel. He'd say, "pick ya up at 2:00? Same corner?" and I'd say, "yeah, sure." He was completely unaware that in addition to his pathetic hairpiece, his accent and his beat-up car were the tools with which my peers tore me apart. "Nice turban your dad has. Is it made of lamb hair?" they'd say, bursting out in laughter as I walk past them. I often envisioned the guys raped in a remote African village while their girlfriends, the dimwit cheerleaders, undergo clitoradectomies by the local blind midwives. The thought of them suffer assuaged my resentment and made me tolerate my dad a little better.

Just like my dad, I provide plenty of material to anyone set on teasing my children whose perpetual sulking whenever around me proved they were both embarrassed and resentful of our kinship.

I take my shower and try to get into my cloths, which seem to be getting tighter every day. As I stagger around the bed trying to push my legs into the pair of Relaxed Chinos, my wife Cindy says, "you gotta lay off that yogurt ice cream or you won't fit into any of your cloths pretty soon." Sizing me up and down with her stabbing look of repulsion, she is put out by the mere sight of me. She is pretty slender herself and could fit into pretty much anything. Unlike her hippopotamus husband--yours truly--my wife, much to my chagrin, is a swan. I looked at her and said nothing. I could have said, "don't worry, honey. I'll stop by the Big Dogs store on the way back home and buy new cloths," but I decided against it. I might still be holding on to a distant dream of having the Fat Fairy pay me a visit late at night to suck all the fat off my body and leave me looking buff and muscular like that man I never was. It's either that or I gave up challenging my wife's arguments a long time ago.

I walk down to the kitchen to grab my coffee before heading out to work. My children, Casey and Stacy, are there having their breakfast. Both kids have their mother's good looks and I convinced myself that they have my intelligence. My children excelled in everything they attempted and since I'm the only one in the family with a college degree, I attributed their triumphs to my genetic generosity--an argument that's consistently shattered by their frequent, nonchalant statements like, "dad, an accounting degree from a community college is nothing to boast about," or before a game of Trivial Pursuit, "no, I don't want dad on my team." 

I'm officially what kids call these days a "douchebag." Boring job, a wife that's probably cheating on me and kids that don't respect me. What happened to my life?

I grab my coffee and leave the house. I get in my '98 Jeep Cherokee and drive to work, thinking where and when did my life veer off course? Where was I in the past thirteen years? Drugged out? Passed out? Checked out?

My name is David Edreesi and I hate my life.

The Locust and The Bird by Hanan Al-Shaykh

Epic Tale of a Muslim Woman's Desire to Love
My review on Amazon

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book--so much so that I read it in one sitting, that's how good it was.

Kamila, the protagonist, grows up poor in a Southern Lebanese village. Her mother, desperate to make ends meet, picks up and moves to Beirut to stay with her kin--a move that proves pivotal in Kamila's story. Ricocheting from one heartbreaking tragedy to another, Kamila finds solace in a forbidden love and Egyptian films starring Mohammed Abdel Wahab. She is, in effect, Juliet who is separated from her Romeo by traditions and duty, learning how to behave and think from the deceptive realities of movies. She has a keen sense of survival that renders her at times unsympathetic, but most importantly, a self-preservationist. Defying religion, society and expectations, Kamila lived out her choices only to find regret tormenting her in her autumn years.

What breaks my heart and what makes this story relevant and universal is that Kamila's story is the reality of so many women and some men living today in patriarchal, religious societies. In some respect, Lebanon of 1934 is eerily similar to Saudi Arabia of 2009. Kamila's story, told beautifully by her daughter, is a window into the world of those tormented souls who carry on happily yet their hearts are heavy with despair and their spirits are acquiescent to defeat.

It's a fascinating and a depressing world, all in the same measure. Peak in, it's guaranteed to move you one way or another.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Beautiful Story; Wrong Format
My review on Amazon

I enjoyed reading this book but I wish it was written as a novel rather than a collection of short stories. As much as I enjoyed getting to know Olive, who reminded me a great deal of my own mother, I would have liked to learn more about her son, Christopher, and her lovely and sympathetic husband, Henry. And of course about Olive herself! I was left with something to be desired in that department.

The short stories, though beautifully written, were distracting. For example, the multiple stories whose characters went to school where Olive taught were redundant and hardly served Olive's own story. It would have been better if they were combined into one minor storyline in a novel about Olive Kitteridge and her family.

Having said that, I found some of the other characters in those short stories equally compelling. Harmon, the hardware store owner, was especially real to me. The Houltons were beautiful and the Larkins were pitiful. Angela O'Meara's story was also viscerally painful.

In the end, Elizabeth Strout wrote thirteen captivating human stories whose common thread is Olive Kitteridge--a big boned, big-mouthed math teacher with a fascinating and colorful personality. Interested so far? Get this book!

The imagery throughout the book was vivid with detailed descriptions like, "She had not looked up. Her fingers were long. Her plain gold band, loose behind the knuckles, caught the sun with each rip." The dialogue and pace were also pretty spot-on.

So if you like short stories about older, married New Englanders and their lives, scandals and heartbreaks, definitely read this book. Otherwise, it will put you to sleep.

No Notes Sync Over The Air (MobileMe)

I have started using the Notes app on my iPhone pretty heavily in the past two weeks but I just noticed that they weren't syncing with my computers. After a quick Google search, I found this on the Apple Support site:

When you connect iPhone or iPod touch to your computer, items are automatically synced according to your preferences set in iTunes. You can, for example, enter phone numbers and addresses of friends and family members on your computer, connect iPhone or iPod touch to sync, then unplug iPhone or iPod touch and tap a friend's name on the touchscreen to call.

You can sync

• Contacts—names, phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, and so on
• Calendars—appointments and events
• Notes (sync with Mac OS X Mail or Microsoft Outlook)*
• Web bookmarks
• Music and audiobooks
• Photos
• Podcasts
• Movies and TV shows
• Applications

*Notes syncing is over USB only and on a Mac requires Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later.

You only have to set which items are synced in iTunes on your computer once. After that, just connect iPhone or iPod touch to start a sync.

At first I thought this was a joke, but when the fact that this was the official Apple statement sank in, I was disappointed. What were the folks at Apple thinking?! You can sync contact information OTA but not notes? It doesn't make any sense! I understand that notes can be big in size, but regardless, this wasn't the way I thought Apple would handle this.