Eventful Week

Wow, definately an eventful week.

It started off pretty much like last week, I was going to work late. My alarm clock is still set to the time when I was getting to work at 8am. But lately for some reason I don’t feel like waking up at that time. I wake up, change the alarm clock to wake me up later. And then at night I set the alarm clock back to the early wake up time. And then repeat.

Anyway, week was going pretty much the same as before (which is not all that bad actually), up until Wednesday night. I was working late and left the office around 7:45ish, last one out apparently, or I set the alarm on some poor soul. On subway ride back home I start doing card flourishes which garnered some attention from people around. Particularly the lady sitting across from me, she seemed to be Guyanese, in her 30s, married. I started doing magic with the cards, I’m not going to describe what I did here, but I did 3 different effects. And when I finished the third one I looked up and she had a huge smile on her face, she looked around as if to see if anyone else had witnessed what she just saw. She took her headphones off and started saying “that was amazing, that was amazing”. She must have repeated that sentence at least 5 or 6 times. All I could say was “thank you”. As she left the train she said, “that was amazing, you have a great day”.

Wow, to be able to affect some stranger without directly communicating with them is amazing. I wish there was a way I could share this feeling with others. I can just relate the story, but it comes out as if I’m saying “look how cool I am, I did such such and so”. But that’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say. But the feeling I get from making someone witness something amazing (their own words) is great, and I wish there was an easy way of sharing that. Either way, may Allah bless her soul, she made my day with her reaction as much as I did her’s with my magic.

That was Wednesday. On Thursday, I’m stilled pumped up from the subway magic experience and I go play squash. So far so good. Played a couple of games and then in the third or fourth game I took a raquet to the upper lip. This is also a feeling that’s hard to share. It all happened so quickly. I hit my shot and was heading back to the “T”, however the ball was also coming back near the “T”, the opposing player took his shot, I was standing behind him and got jolted in the face during the follow-through. This experience is painful. I can only liken this pain to getting hit in the face with a swinging raquet.

My glasses flew off as a result of the contact. My first thoughts away from the pain were, “oh my God, my vision is blurry!!! Wait, no that’s okay my glasses flew off.”. Second thoughts were, “Okay, do I still have all my teeth.” I ran my tongue along my teeth and although there was pain, there were no missing teeth, praise the Lord. Then I noticed the bleeding, which made me laugh. I was thinking, “okay, just when I feel my week is getting better, I get whacked in the face. Is there anything funnier than this? Should I be taking some sort of message away from this? Is this God smacking me in the face here?”. And that made my laugh. I’m sure it seemed as if I was trying to act “manly” after getting hit, but that’s not why I was laughing, or trying to chuckle.

Doc said I should go to emergency and get stitches, I asked him if it was necessary. He said it wasn’t but it would leave a scar if I didn’t. Since the gash was on the inside of my mouth I passed on the stitching. My friends, however had a field day with the whole thing. “How do you recognize Adnan in a crowd?”, “Bad hair-do and glasses”. “Now it’s bad hair-do, glasses and a fat lip”. Funny. Actually it is funny. Apart from the fact that it kinda hurts when I try to smile or laugh. But I gather this shouldn’t last too many days.

Friday, I finally get to work early. A first time in a 3 or so weeks. Apparently I ended up making an inappropriate comment at the companny lunch meeting gathering. I was unaware of the proper context and didn’t know at the time that my comment could possibly be taken as inappropriate. Not sure how the other people took it, there seemed to be a few “hahas” from the crowd. Meh.

I left work early, met up with a friend (Irfan) and headed to Eaton’s Center. My first time at this place. Just a big mall, although the Christmas Tree was quite beautiful. Either way, the reason we were at this mall was to get contacts. The ones meant for the eyes. I haven’t had my eyes checked in a few years now, so I had to do that. At the eye doctor’s office, I was waiting to be called in, so I use this time to explain to Irfan the Wednesday subway magic incident. There were other patients waiting as well. I performed exactly what I performed on the subway and it got great reactions, from Irfan and from the folks who were watching.

The doctor calls me in and sees the cards in my hands. I guess these days people immediately equate seeing a deck of cards with poker. “You play poker? Texas Holdem?”, he asks. “No, actually, I do card magic.”. He starts talking about Chris Angel, and how some of the things he does doesn’t seem like magic since there’s the camera involved. I agreed with him, why even bother doing effects that people will think are camera tricks? I told him that I would show him some magic after we were done. After the initial checkup, he put some liquid in my eyes and asked me to wait outside again. So back in the waiting area, I start playing with the cards, and then I was ready to be called back in. The doc says, “Okay, show us what you have.” He calls over the receptionist as well, and there were the other patients who were waiting. I performed my latest card routine, and it got very good reactions. One of the things I said while performing was, “Now, you see the 2 of diamonds, but if I wave it like this, you start to see the Ace of diamonds. I don’t know, but you’re the eye doctor here.”

Good times. Irfan later told me that as I was performing, he was feeling nervous for me. Hahaha. He’s only see me perform for people that he knows. This was the first time he’s seen me performing magic for strangers. He said, “Now I know what you go through”. Yeah, it’s not easy being me. There are somethings that are so easy to do and say, and then there are other things that I just can’t bring myself to do and say. I guess that goes for everyone. So it’s not easy being anyone. But then I do magic on top of that. So it’s not easy being me.

I also learned that I had astigmatism. Apparently this was being corrected by the glasses I was wearing. The doctor showed me how I would see things if my glasses didn’t correct the astigmatism. It was blurry. My contacts have to be a different shape to correct the astigmatism and this costs extra. Apparently there is no magician’s discount.

Wearing contacts is a whole new feeling. To be able to see clearly at all angles is crazy! Generally I move only my eyes to see something in my peripheral vision, like a clock on the wall. Since my glasses aren’t in between the clock and my eyes at that point, the clock seems blurry. But with contacts, I can move just my eyes and see things clearly. Wow.

I’m still getting used to the way I look without the glasses. I think my face has taken shape around wearing glasses. I’ve had them since I was in grade 6 or so (not the same pair). I bet it must be wierd for others who are used to me wearing glasses as well. I’m supposed to wear the contacts everyday for a week for some focus check or something. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes.

All in all, an eventful week.