My name is J, I go with many names, but J is the most used. I am exactly one year old, so they say.

Few months back, I couldn’t turn to the side, almost always on my back which made my vision limited to a boring ceiling.

Now, I turn, flip, crawl and walk on my legs. I can go wherever and whenever I want. Nothing and none can stop me.

I spend my days exploring stuff in this place they refer to as home. There are fascinating stuff all the time. I most enjoy those that can make noise when I throw or smack them repeatedly on the floor or any other close surface.

Today, I turned one. I don’t know what that means, but my minions have been increasingly moshy and cuddly around me. I even saw my mum shed a tear while I was dozing off around midnight.

So now, all I have to do in the coming months is to sleep a bit longer during the night, and nap more often during the day said my old man. In return, he said he will get me a special screen that I can play and break, just like the one he had before I laid my hands on it.

Whatever.

I will do as I will! A great man once said: Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law.

Y:

It is without a doubt I made the right decision.

Christmas, 2014. We became one. It was chapter 2, page 1, and the days flew by merrily and without hiccups that newly weds typically go through.

One would look back and contemplate choices made every once in a while. I did, many times, and if throughout all my life I have been making the wrong decisions, you are the only right. You have proved to me time and time again that I made the right choice. My love for you before that merry Christmas could not be measured, and today, still, my love for you can’t be quantified.

Exactly one year ago, our lives changed, we have a little monkey between our legs, we have no time for us. Yet, in those moments when the little monkey is taking a power nap, we find those moments to share few thoughts here and there. Watch a movie hoping that we can complete it whole without falling asleep from fatigue or the sudden waking of a little tornado. Those moments, are priceless.

The amount of respect I hold for you is enormous. The change of character, the strength, the patience, and even the few meltdowns throughout this year that I saw in you is nothing short of amazing. Most noticeable is the love that one can see in your eyes whenever the little monkey crawls up to your lap and gives you a hug or lay on your lap.

Gratitude for the countless hours you stayed awake with J the destroyer at night. The effort you put in to keep him fed, clean, tidy and loved. All the while taking care of the big monkey that is me.

Will it get easier now? Doubt it. But I hope we can continue on the current path and raise this havoc with much love and kindness so that we can unleash a good monkey into the world.

T:
It was at 6:15am, August 20, 2017 when I first saw you. A bundle lifted by Dr Malak up in the air. She looked at me and said: “Here he is, he is healthy and beautiful.”

A nurse took you and wrapped you in a towel while you were crying and started cleaning you up. Sucking liquids through tubes from your nose.

Unbeknown to you, the man in green scrubs staring at you at that moment was me! your father. It is at that moment, when our eyes locked for what seemed an eternity that all my perceptions of fatherhood fell. A great veil was lifted, and a warm feeling went through my body. I am a father now. I am your father. I knew at that moment that I will try to be the best father that I can possibly can to you. I will take care of you. I will raise you to be the best in what you are and what you want to be. I will spare nothing to mold you with the best qualities of humanity.

It is now a year since we met, a year together. A lot of change, a lot of growing up, 6 teeth already, and you are a week or two away from walking by yourself.

Our home is now divided to two sections:

1- What you can reach.
2- What you can’t reach so far.

Admittedly, section two real state is getting smaller and smaller, everything on and in the tv stand and bookshelves are now cramped somewhere nigh of your reach. Kitchen, bedrooms are child and adult proofed.

So, what’s next J?
You are funny, witty, and extremely social. Those traits are putting a strain on your parents. We cannot leave you with your adult friends. It’s not ok for me to leave you in the cafeteria or the sweets shops in our building. No, I will not succumb to your every whim! Because admittedly I’m jealous that you have now so many friends in merely 365 days that you lived here on earth since you came to us imported from the cute monkey section of the zoo.

Moving forward:

I expect you to behave, become less social. Understand the meaning of the word “No.”

Lose interest in all IT gadgets, wires, plugs etc, and move your interests to your moms stuff. 80% of my stuff are broken now.

Happy birthday J. Stay cool. Tonight we celebrate your birthday with a cool cake, and we are hoping that you will enjoy it’s taste and texture.

We left.

Sitting in the car afterwards.
“Doomish, Can you believe that they are twins?” she asked ecstatically.

“Err, umm, maybe, I don’t know, two or one, I still did not process the fact, didn’t sink in me yet,” I said, as I opened the window and gazed at the calm waters of the lake across of me.

Later that day, and after intense deliberations and mutual agreement, and until further notice, the twins will be referred to as *UC1, UC2.

Last week, I came down from the lab hiding the blood results tests.
“It will need another 10 minutes for the results to come out,” I lied, as Mrs Doomish writhed in her car seat.
I cut her after a minute of mumbling about the delay.
“You are pregnant the test revealed, your hormone levels are off the charts,” I said, as she jumped up and down the seat with tears coming down her cheeks.

The day after.
“Congratulations! you are pregnant, there is a high chance of having twins, according to the blood work results,” The doctor said with a big smile on his face.

Few minutes later, a nurse came up to me and said: “Congrats, you will be a father,” she said to me.

“Um, thanks!” was my reply.

“He still does not realize it,” my wife told the nurse to explain my flatline response.

“Oh! I know madam, he won’t comprehend that he is a father until they are born,” the nurse said with a chuckle.

*UC: Under construction.

Doomish:
Brave, Courageous and bold.
Long live his fame
and long live his glory.
Long may his worthless posts be told.

The hotel was strategically placed in Taksim; 2 minutes to the bus stop, 30 seconds away from Taksim square.

A couple of bus tickets and we roamed the city, all the tourist attractions including Spice and Grand Bazaars, Suleymaniye Mosque, Hagia Sophia and Sultanahmet amongst many others.

The constant rain there brought us immense joy, as it uplifts our spirits, apposed to the scorching summer time in the UAE.

Aside from the awesome time visiting those places, walking for extended amounts of time under the rain, and eating from kiosks on the streets and exploring the alleys of Istanbul was the best thing in this trip.

Definitely we will visit again.

An empty plane at the crack of dawn was en route to the Maldives, passengers were free to pick an seats and sleep on them.

The next plane was a seaplane that dropped us off in the middle of the water before we were picked up by a boat that took us to Kuramathi island.

The time was frozen on the Island, the pictures taken and those framed in my brain can not be described, and can not be compared to anything I have ever seen before.

A week of relaxation, swimming and reading on the pristine beaches and pools were priceless.

It was worth the wait, living on an island in the Indian Ocean, with nothing but smiles, good food, company, and cloudy skies covering the bright sun and showering us with bursts of warm tropical rain.

Doomish:
Brave, Courageous and bold.
Long live his fame
and long live his glory.
Long may his worthless posts be told.

The only reason I went to my apartment was to check my guitar and if it was worth taking it with me to UAE.

Red visited me while I was there, we had a long long chat, like we used to before each of us flew to another country.

Time well spent.
I didn’t take my guitar.

Open minded closed society:
When will our closed society drop meddling, interfering with our personal life and decisions? When will it accept us for what we are, and what we want? and not force us to be what it wants?

Tears:
For the first time in my life, I let my parents drop me off at the airport.
My mom cried, and I couldn’t hold my tears.

Tears fell like rain, all the way until I was waiting to board and found a friend there.
I had to man up, and stop the tears.

That was the first and last time I will let my parents drop me off.

Feline:
Misha played hard to get, but she warmed up to me after a couple of days. I love this girl. She was playful sometimes and I had fun playing with her until she was fed up with my annoying games.

Sasha was as usual snugly and friendly, he played the hungry beggar and made me feed him a whole stick of a feline treat, although he had his meal, and a treat.

The bastard knows how to get what he wants.

Haircut:
My cousin cuts hair nicely, she was in charge of cutting my hair for the past several years.

I kept telling her while she was cutting my hair to do a mistake, so that I can shave off all the hair to fix it.

She didn’t do a mistake, and it was a nice and refreshing hair cut.

Tech and Internet:
I finally bought a satellite receiver that I can hack, destroy, reprogram to my liking

To hell with BeIn sports receiver, the remote looks like a dildo, and the software is from the Stone Age.
Once I knew I was flying to jordan, I emailed my brother a long list of files, apps, movies, sitcoms to download for me.

I downloaded more than 30 movies, many apps, many operating systems, several metal concerts and lots of music.
The only thing I miss from jordan is the availability of high speed unmetered unfiltered Internet connection.

Doomish:
Brave, Courageous and bold.
Long live his fame,
and long live his glory.
Long may his worthless posts be told.

The kitchen of a newly weds have been plagued with bent fork tines; the first sighting of these strange anomalies occurred few days following the wedding on Christmas, last year.

The baffled husband asked the Mrs about them, but has not as of this writing received any logical explanation.

Over the past several years prior to the wedding, Doomish have noticed bent tines on many of the silverware found at his companion’s home.

He offered on several occasions that he buy a new set of forks to replace those bent.

Trash bins.

The small home of the love birds contains several trash bins positioned at strategic locations for the convenience of those in the home.

However, any disposal of items in the trash bin located near the TV set is often accompanied by a request to dispose of the items in another trash bin.

Any disposed items found in this specific trash bin without the knowledge of the mrs, is often met with: “Don’t use this trash bin again,” in a vocal tone that can be described as playful and ‘I will chop off your hand if you do it again’ tone.

Several talks between the husband and the Mrs on the appropriate times/items that can be allowed/used for this specific trash bin, yielded no valid response.

Clothes hangers.

As any home would have, we have several clothes hangers installed, 2 of them are mounted on the bedroom and bathroom doors.

Additionally, there is a clothes hanger stand in the bedroom.

There are no issue with the one mounted on the bathroom door, however, for some weird reason, both the hanger mounted on the bedroom door, and the stand can not at any given moment hold more than 2 male clothing items per occupant.

The writer of this post submits that he rarely used the clothes hanger stand, however the one mounted on the bedroom door is repeatedly used, especially after returning back from work, and changing to a shorts and a tshirt.

The mounted hanger contains no less than 10 hooks ready to be heavily used as intended, however, the administrative authority, also known as the Mrs, denies occupants of the house to have more than 2 items at any given moment.

If for any reason, the number of items exceeded the allowed limit, the items would disappear, and would be located to somewhere else only known to administrative authority.

If the subjects would request any leads or information regarding the whereabouts of the missing items, he would be given the new location of the items after receiving a lecture on the limit of items allowed on said clothes hanger.

As of this writing, the author of this post have not received any response to questions regarding the regulations and laws behind the 2 clothes items limit. 

For full disclosure, the bedroom mounted clothes hanger have not been used by any female occupants to the knowledge of this writer.

The mystery continues.

Doomish:
Brave, Courageous and bold.
Long live his fame,
and long live his glory.
Long may his worthless posts be told.

Newspaper style with no editor to check my mistakes or do the required edits.

UAE// News reporter shrouded in grief and dismay after a short visit back to his home country.

The news reporter felt that he lost all traces of him ever exsisting at his home country, after his family took over his apartment and carried out maintenance and changed most of its decorations.

Doomish as he is known, travelled back on the 9th of february in a surprise visit to his parents, the visit came after spending several months in the UAE after he joined a major english newspaper. 

The plane landed at midnight and the reporter was greeted by his brother, both of them enjoyed a slow ride home, the brother offered the fatigued plagued brother a bottle of water and generously stopped on the way home for a few minutes so that Doomish can smoke a cigarette. 

According to sources, the parents were surprised by the visit, the family saw their son early in the morning after they noticed an unused bedroom door suspiciously closed. 

The parents kept mentioning to the estranged son about the changes that have been done in his apartment during his absence.

“You should go and see your apartment, you will not believe it,” said the mother.

The parents went on to describe every little change and every thing they fixed they during the past four months. 

Sleep deprived and jet lagged Doomish responded, “Not now, i will check it later when i am rested.” 

According to the neighbours, the news reporter arrived at his apartment shortly after noon, “He was distraught and aloof, said the diabetic father living next door. 

“The house is neat, clean and well organised,” said Doomish, the reporter went on to describe his feelings, “The house was cold and desolate, there was no evidence that I ever lived here for 13 years.”

The news reporter spent his vacation saddened by what he felt and saw, as well as other problems that he encountered his visit.

The estranged son encountered several  problems and got occupied in fixing them and missed his flight back to the UAE

Doomish was stranded in queen Alia airport until he manged to get onboard the next flight.

“I missed my flight, I lost track of time, I arrived back to the UAE on the next flight, they were one of the worst days of life,” he said.

My words: 

I have been sad, lost, borderline depressed!
I came back to jordan for a 3 day visit, it’s been few months since I last was here.

For 13 years I had a silent empire, a shelter, haven, a sanctuary that I called my home. 

 A few friends of mine even called it home.

I have it no more.

My parents fixed it up, cleaned it, even slept in it.

When my brother picked me up from the airport, he asked me if I want to sleep at my home or at my parents, I told him to take me to my parents. 

 The next day, they told me what they have fixed/done in my apartment, and begged me to go see it, I refused, something kept telling me not to go.

Well,  I went.
The house was neat, clean and well organized.
It was cold. Lacks my spirit, lacks my identity, I was furious, I was sad mad and I even dropped a couple of tears.

My home was not mine anymore.
I left in a hurry, because I didn’t want to cry.

I spent the next days in a very bad state of mind, I even missed my flight. God damn I was just waiting to get back to UAE to end this awful vacation.

At this point, I don’t know when and if I will go back to Amman anytime soon.

It was awful.

I bought them along side few groceries and items from the mall..

I reached home and parked my car, for no valid reason, I put the cables in my laptop bag and went inside.

I hid the cables from the forever watchful eye of Mrs. Doomish.

I didn’t want to hear the ‘you have a million cables and you went out to buy more?’ Line from the mrs. :/

Now, for the day to day living condition since marriage, the house is always clean and tidy, unlike the junkyard I had back home.

Food is always good, the fridge contains fruits and veggies and lots of other stuff, unlike a year ago, it contained leftover take out food and expired items.

My clothes are always clean and in the closet, not like in my apartment in Amman, winter clothes were on a couch, summer clothes were on another couch.

I make sure not to spill coffee on the floor, I clean the spot I eat or drink at, I hang my clothes immediately after I change.

Mrs. Doomish is content and happy with regards to my behavior and following orders, according to the score card she has for my performance, and also from other sources close to the mrs.

I’m a good Doomish 🙂

Me and Mrs Doomish, walked down from our room… Down to the hallway… Out on the green path that led us to the beach, where our friends and family awaited us…

The tables were set as a U shape, with our backs to the hotel and our eyes on the beach and the dark horizon…

Four hours of pure fun and joy…

The introvert that I am, enjoyed every minute of it.

The introvert that Mrs. Doomish is, enjoyed it to the max.

Now that’s almost 10 days ago, it doesn’t feel strange at all, the only draw back is that I have to clean up after myself or I will be scolded for being a pig.

Being a friend before being a husband or a wife, makes married life much easier, the habits are known, the goods and bad are already out in the open, not a lot of major surprises after the wedding.

I am enjoying it so far, so does Mrs. Doomish.

The draw back for now is that there was no honeymoon.

The honeymoon will be scheduled this month once I’m out of the probation period.

Doomish:
Brave, Courageous and bold.
Long live his fame,
and long live his glory.
Long may his worthless posts be told.

Alter ego: So Doomish, first of your name… tell us the good stuff!

Me: Well, I have an apartment now, empty, mind you, but still…
I bought the necessities, i’ll let mrs. doomish to be, buy the rest when she comes here.

The necessities being: Water cooler, fridge, water kettle, clothes iron, TV, satellite receiver, router, toaster, bed mattress, pillow and most important thing in the world: Sugar, Coffee mate and lots and lots of coffee.

Alter ego: So, are you settling in comfortably at work?
Me: Um, its weird, i’m out and about most of the day meeting new people and building contacts, that is not me, THAT IS NOT ME! also, writing news stories on various topics is challenging man, i had an article on a stamps exhibition, another one about science festival for kids, other articles about medicinal issues, fires, gang of thieves, shit man, its diverse!

Alter ego: Man up! Better do some good work or you will get your walking papers! Tell us about the emirate you are in charge of?
Me: Well, Sharjah is complicated, really vast! without google maps, i would have been lost since day one! the traffic jams are unbearable! on the plus side, taking a wrong exit isn’t as catastrophic as in dubai. Man, once i took a wrong exit in dubai and i ended up late almost an hour to my destination.

Everything is kinda low key and hush hush in Sharjah when it comes to bad and negative stuff, unlike Dubai, everything there seems in the open.

Alter ego: How about RAK?
Me: i didn’t go there yet, i’m trying to familiarize myself with Sharjah, its more important at the moment.

Alter ego: So what about the title of this post? you went on a boat and got lost?
Me: Meh, Na, for the first time, i had spare time, so i went to the beach, and just kicked back and listened to some music, with a cup of large coffee from Dunkin Donuts, may their coffee stream never ends. I drifted away watching the sunset, the weather is just amazing these days.

Alter ego: Good for you dude, any plans for the weekend?
Me: Yes, SLEEP and hopefully not sleep, but SLUMBER.

Alter ego: Honestly, this chat is boring, how about you go do something away from here?!
Me: Crawl back to whence you came, Maggot!

“Bright were the days and fiery the sun
The nights were soft and cloudless the silent welkin hung”

Doomish:
Brave, Courageous and bold.
Long live his fame,
and long live his glory.
Long may his worthless posts be told.