#uncoffeed...

Iqbal was born into his 33rd life as a cat. This would have surprised him had he retained more memories, because his 32nd life had been spent as a Muslim who believed no such thing could occur. Iqbal the Muslim had in fact spent delightful hours over tea with a Hindu neighbor discussing the possibilities, or lack thereof, of reincarnation. Iqbal the cat dutifully washed his paws in the drinking-bowl after visiting the litter-box.  Then, catlike, he would be distracted by the trail of water splashed out. He would follow it with his nose and return again to the bowl to splash out more water, never able to solve the mystery of gravity. Iqbal peered out from behind the door of the barn where he spent his sleeping hours.  He took his naps in the straw-pile, which was much like the bed of straw his momma made him as a young boy growing up in the Swat Valley.  Iqbal the cat didn't so much remember his  human childhood as he felt a natural comfort in the smell of stra...

the truth of the matter a woman knows knows before she knows hence the fearsome sense the truth of the matter i would were it not for matters of logic and exposition be able to answer more clearly the question.

Last night I was at Holiday Inn Central in Washington, DC , but this time as a guest. Big things happened to me in the 12 years I worked there: a life ended and a new one began, and then that life died, too. I’m three reincarnations past the point where I left that building and the people who remain; there was a bit of family reunion to the visit. I had to explain a few times how I was no longer married to that Pakistani guy. I was in town to see Henry Rollins (Henry Fucking Rollins!) present his vacation photos . It turns out he takes pictures like I do – of moments, not just people and things. Sometimes things, though, because sometimes things are funny, like Black Flag shirts on the other side of the world. Let him tell that story. He started with the last time he’d been at Lincoln Theater. The notoriously tough DC audience (because DC people are smart, he said, but I know they are dry as fuck – you’re nice, HFR) kept looking at their phones like they were bored.  So...