Back home

I'm back from Canadia! Sadly, I left the hotel only once the entire four days I was there. It was just conference conference conference 24/7. The steakhouse we ate out at (the one night there wasn't a planned dinner) was even connected to the hotel! So the only sunlight I got was by sitting out by the pool during breaks.

It's always fun mingling with folks in your industry because then you can geek out about stuff that would bore anyone else. "Wow, take a look at that paper stock!" or "Check out the spot-coating they got on those photographs!" just doesn't fly in the normal world. I get to quibble about what makes good market writing, and I get to debate about the tone I want to use versus "the company tone." Being the one & only at my company who does what I do, gatherings like this help keep me sane.

I won "Best of Show" in my category (don't get excited, it's nothing glamorous--we're talking annual reports here), and I got to spend quality time with my fake boyfriend (who coincidentally has my title at a different NYC company and was already going to this conference (picture me sneaking back to my hotel room on the 18th floor from his room on the 27th floor in the early morning hours, and then having to swing an emergency escape down the stairs in order to thwart scandal when I saw a fellow conference-goer coming my way!)).

When it was all done, I put the crystal trophy thing in my carry-on luggage and headed for the Toronto airport. Walking through immigration, the man on the other side of the counter took my U.S. passport and opened it to where my picture was. He looked me up and down. There was a pause of some insecurity and nervousness, as I am wont to have by experience. He asked me why I was in Canada. I told him I was here for business. He asked me where I had stayed, and I told him that as well. "You live in New York?" he asked. I told him I did. Then he closed the navy booklet, handed it back to me, and wished me a safe journey home. I have no logical reason to feel this way (as I am a law-abiding citizen and was born in the U.S.), but every time I pass through airport security or customs, I breathe a sigh of relief as if I've just gotten away with murder. I hide the smile, not wanting to be suspicious.

Club Persia: TORONTO!

I leave for Toronto to go to a business conference this Sunday! In the meantime, I will leave you with this golden nugget: The cousins of my cousin's cousin's cousin's cousin tell me that Toronto is on its way to becoming the new L.A. (referred to popularly as "Tehrangeles" by fellow-Persians).

OMG! I CAN'T WAIT!!

Just kidding. I will probably never leave the Hilton where I'm staying. NOT EVEN FOR CLUB PERSIA! Sacrifices!

Making other plans

Okay, so I know this blog is supposed to be all about my experience getting ready to go to Iran and related subjects... but the truth is that it's never All Iran All The Time--people are complex, and I'm very American too. John Lennon said it best: "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

Village life

I love New York because I feel like I live in a village way more than I ever felt… even when I’ve lived in villages. By the time I walk down to the ground level of my apartment building on Saturday mornings, the Italians from the pizza place downstairs are already hosing off the front sidewalk, washing it of debris, waving hello. At the Mexican laundromat around the corner, I bump into the Korean woman who does my nails down the street. Walking to my local coffee shop where everyone knows me, I run into the Indian pharmacy shop-owner who is parking his car, stops to say hello to me and reminds me to get my refill on time. I finish my magazines at the café, sipping ice coffee (The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The Atlantic), before heading to the nail salon for my weekly manicure (and to catch up on the latest edition of US Weekly and In Touch Magazine, deliberating over Essie colors). Outside the salon, I pick up a box of blueberries from the Muslim boy who runs the fruit cart. This is my weekend routine. I’m not sure why these little interactions and familiarities make me so happy or give me such immense pleasure. In a city that is known for its impersonality, I can’t explain it except to say that anyone who thinks New York is impersonal has certainly never lived here before. And, at the center of all our being—ethnicity, tribe, family—the thing that makes us most who we are is where we live.

Parents

I finally cracked open the newest issue of The Atlantic last night and read an article by Lori Gottlieb which essentially asks the question, “Could it be that by protecting our kids from unhappiness as children, we’re depriving them of happiness as adults?”

Big Brother

My father's late sister convinced my mother to abort her first child, a boy. She wanted my mother to have a girl first, to honor her own mother who had died prematurely. When my mother went into labor with me, my father was working, so she walked by herself three blocks to the University Hospital from student housing (which has since been demolished and is now a parking lot across the street from Agua Verde in Seattle). My mother had her abortion a few years earlier at the Planned Parenthood in the Central District (which has also since been demolished and is now, I think, a Safeway grocery store or something like that?). She didn't tell me about my potential older brother until I was in college; she says she deeply regrets it, and she blames my father's sister for convincing her.

All magickal things

I'm back from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Florida. Don't laugh! It was soooo fun! The designers at the theme park did such an amazing job with Hogwarts and the village of Hogsmeade. Moaning Myrtle's voice could be heard in the public bathroom, we walked through a portrait hall of speaking paintings, we dined at the Three Broomsticks, we perused the candy selection at Honeydukes ($10 chocolate frogs!), and we had Butter Beer that made us nauseous. I was even able to check into my flight without getting pulled aside for "special treatment" due to my name (usually, I'm never able to check in using the automated kiosks). Alice got her yogurt confiscated though because it was obviously dangerous. I felt so much safer since the TSA caught that. They don't mess around.

Jobs

There was a rooftop party in Tribeca last night. It was so hot that the Chinese fans they handed out as favors barely did anything. Everyone there was involved in one startup or another. I had no idea so many startups even existed because, as a commoner, I haven't heard of any of them. These days, I feel like all my friends work for startups. It's like the dot-com gold rush all over again. As night fell and the Christmas lights were turned on and the first keg ran out, people got more talkative over the chip bowl (or maybe just I did). I felt pretty lame telling people I was a "communications director." Nope, no sexy, endlessly cool startup--just a stable, well-paid, behind-the-scenes wordsmith.

Certainly, nobody in my family understands what I do. There isn't even a Farsi word for it. All they care about is the amount of the paycheck, which my Persian mom and dad are happy about. They don't understand how people could want anything more. Relatives kind of nod their head and smile when I tell them what I do because they have no clue what it means. It's a well-known fact that Persian parents always want their sons and daughters to be doctors, engineers or successful entrepreneurs. It's always doctor doctor doctor. The latest thing is the dentist craze. Kids who don't want to go through the whole medical school thing go to dental school instead because it's shorter and you still get "Dr." in front of your name. I know way too many Persian dentists. And it's gross! Seriously? You are going to dedicate to spending half your life inhaling other people's bad breath just so you can tell people you're a "doctor"? I don't even think you make that much money with all the insurance and equipment you have to buy, not to mention the glut of competition. It seems like a big sacrifice to make. But anything for a Persian mom and dad...

Me? I guess I don't care much, as long as I'm invited to the parties. That is the one Persian thing about me.

Other reasons to change your identity papers

I told my mom that when I called the embassy and told them I wanted to renew my identification papers, they were surprised since identification papers aren't typically "renewed." She thought for a moment then gasped, "Maybe they thought you were getting a sex-change!" Aside from changing identity papers to reflect the new regime, Iran will also change identity papers if you are switching sex. I had forgotten about this.

The contents

The FedEx envelope addressed to the Interest Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the Embassy of Pakistan in D.C. contains:

1. Form #423 [filled out in Farsi by my mother]
2. Four (4) passport-sized photographs [wearing headscarf, no neck showing]
3. $64 U.S. dollars [money order]
4. My original U.S. passport [which they say will be mailed back as soon as they confirm it is authentic]
5. My original Iranian identity papers ["Renewal? What do you mean? Everyone only gets one set when they are born," says the man on the phone. "Identity papers aren't renewed: You are only one person forever." I explain that my identity papers are from before the revolution. "Ah," he says. "Yes, of course you need to mail that in also. Form #423."]

Even today

It made me so sad to hear that the Iranian women's national soccer team was banned from an Olympic qualifying tournament recently because they were required by their country to wear headscarves.

The Iranian government won't allow the women to play without headscarves, and FIFA won't allow them to play with headscarves. FIFA: You suck.

On paper

I meet my father at the 11th Street Cafe in the West Village, half a block from the Sufi House were he volunteers when he's working in Jersey. He balks and grunts a bit when I try to hug him, always unfamiliar with how people are supposed to act, horribly uncomfortable. He has never been able to show physical or emotional affection. Now that I know about his mother, I am able to forgive him or at least understand why he is this way a little better.

He's come straight from the Port Authority bus station. We sit at a table and he unzips his backpack and procures the documents, puts them on the table then crosses his arms and looks the other way, frowning, refusing to make eye-contact.

I'm not here

They line West 33rd Street in the morning, drinking coffee and donuts. There are maybe 100 or 200 grizzled construction workers taking their break from the project across the street at Madison Square Garden. They all wear their neon yellow vests. They all sit on the ledge in front of the building I work in. They all stare, not allowed to catcall but doing it with their eyes anyway. It's a gauntlet I walk on my way to work every day. And it is a long gauntlet. I stare at the ground the whole way, walking quickly, pretending I am deep in thought, in another world, deaf. I learned how to walk this way in the Middle East--as long as you don't acknowledge they are there or staring or saying things, then there will be no trouble. I am invisible, a ghost, traceless. Pretend I am not here, dead already. This is wisdom, not fear.

It's a skill that has served me well in every country I have ever visited.