http://ourstory.com/story.html?v=51931 Ourstory.com http://media.ourstory.com/13/91/50/3d095f0849d05f32f378f4b2e99f8806e49300b4/a0d88e26c707a4e1a3607fb32db74c004c105476-t.jpg http://ourstory.com/story.html?v=51931 http://ourstory.com/thread.html?t=161612 Steven Khalil Merriam Webster's Dictionary The Occult-Colin Wilson The Tao Te Ching-Lao Tse Walden-H.D Thoreau Tue, 10 Oct 2006 00:07:21 +0000 http://ourstory.com/thread.html?t=161612 http://ourstory.com/thread.html?t=155105 Steven Khalil She was an Irish girl with a dimpled chin, wide cheek bones, the bluest eyes any woman or man had ever had, with a laugh more sweet than honey, and more musical that anything composed this side of the land of dreams. I loved her with the passion and anxiety of teenaged youth, and the silliness of one giddy with champagne. I met her my sophomore year of high school, though she said she knew me my first year. She was one of those 'troubled' girls who were too bright for where they were but not bright enough to play the game as the adults wanted it to be played so she caused herself problems. She was sensitive, experienced more than I, and became the template for all later loves in my life. She wore glasses, all the girls and women that I fell for in my life after her wore glasses. They all had alabaster skin, though J is fair enough that her skin is pink in her face but the color of fresh cream everywhere else. All the girls and women afte the first are smart. They are all too smart and have some sort of issue or quirk. She initiated me into the ways of love. When I was 17 and graduated high school. It was graduation night. The terrible thing as a result of that was that I tried to chain her to me. I tried to make her mine and in so doing let her slip through my fingers like she was smoke in the air. Years later, well into my twenties perhaps touching my thirties, my dad called me to tell me that she had stopped by thier house looking for me. That she was living in the capitol and working for a large insurance company. She stopped by because she wondered how things had turned out with me. My dad told her that I had gone off and joined a cult. There was some bitterness in what he said because at the time I had embraced Islam in a big way. She was my first love. It is shocking to think how she has shaped my choices in women since her. Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:59:01 +0000 http://ourstory.com/thread.html?t=155105 http://ourstory.com/thread.html?t=154057 Steven Khalil I really didn't have a posse or clique in my teens. I was an outsider who really didn't hang out with other outsiders. The last two years of high school were hell of lonliness and existential angst. I would have done the absolutely stupidest of things, dropping out but that is where the fear of the fatherly wrath did a good thing. I stayed in school, barely because the old man would have killed me, resurrected me and marched my zombie self back into class. I had a few friends outside of school that I would get together with but they weren't a hanging out, going to the movies, grabbing a shake at the maltshop crowd. The people that I hung out with the most were people made of air. They were people from the books I read, the movies I'd seen. Books were one of the most important part of my life. Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe, Paul Atreidies, Frodo, Boromir were all my homies. My dawgs were people that only existed in some sort of mental sphere of light and air. I think that is why my wife tells me that I am too much in my head and not enough in the world. I grew up in my head. The world wasn't something that I wanted too much of because it wasn't a pleasant place for me. Thu, 21 Sep 2006 11:58:55 +0000 http://ourstory.com/thread.html?t=154057 http://ourstory.com/thread.html?t=153587 Steven Khalil I have had two legal names. The first was fixed on me at birth. The story on that is that my dad wanted for me to have my own name rather than to be a junior or to bear a family name. Right now I am not too sure how much baloney that is or if it's the truth. He took my name from a comic book character from the time of Mike Nomad's creation. Steve something or other. So for decades I was Steven. I didn't particularly like that name. I always had the intention of changing it but never followed through on that until my conversion to Islam. Converting or reverting as Muslims call it gave me permission to change my name. It gave me a reason beyond mere whim. I wrestled with Islamic names. I wanted something that was strong and would bode well for my future. I thought about Malik, but that is an attribute of god and the proper way to bear that name was Abdulmalik and that didn't sit right with me. Abd means slave. So all those Abd___ names mean slave of what ever attribute of god that comes next. My ego wouldn't settle for that. I came across the name Khalil one of those insomniac nights wandering the magazine aisle of a 24 hour walgreens. I was in one of those trippy sleepy moods with my eyes doing funny things with the flourescent lighting. I picked up a baby name book and cracked it open. Khalil was one of the first names on the page. Khalil, trusted friend just seemed right. It wasn't the hard edged name that I originally wanted. I had been looking at adopting steely edged hypermasculine names that just screamed power at the mere utterence. Khalil, was a softer, gentler name. It was a strong name because being a trusted friend of anyone is a monumental task. I walked out of that Walgreens with a bottle of diet pepsi and a name kicking around in my head. About a week later I mentioned to my Muslim brothers that I had picked a name. They all agreed that it was a good choice. When I got paid that week I went to the Judge of Probate's office, signed some documents saying that I wasn't trying to committ fraud, plunked down $90 and a week or so later I was Khalil. Well I was Khalil to everyone except my family and pre-islamic friends. My mother calls me Stevie. My dad,until he died called me Steven. Now he doesn't call me at all. The wierd thing is I am of a mind to change it again. I haven't been a practicing Muslim in almost a decade. I still have Muslim sentiments and Muslim guilt but as far as holding to that path, well, I have swerved way off of it. Steven vs Khalil. I dropped Steven because I more or less didn't like who I was, where I came from, and those I was connected with. Khalil was sort of a declaration of independance. I think I have come to terms with the Steven part of my life. And now that there isn't a religious reason for Khalil I have been wanting to forgive or heal that Steven part. What I would do if I were to do it is reintergrate the name Steven and make Khalil my middle name. It would be a psychologically significant ritual of forgiveness and acceptance. I think. Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:10:23 +0000 http://ourstory.com/thread.html?t=153587 http://ourstory.com/thread.html?t=153575 Steven Khalil I was born in the middle of the summer in Hartford Connecticut. My mother was 27 years old. Years later when I went to get my birth certificate for my driver's license I found that her name was different from the one she bears now. Though I guess she bears that name still because my father never actually married her. Oh what a tangled web we weave, but that comes much later in the story. I was born in Connecticut. My mother is from Vermont, which is enough to my mind to make me a New Englander. No matter where I live in this country or in others I will always be a New Englander. Back in '64 she was admitted to Hartford hospital on July 4th. What a bummer, I imagine. No fireworks, hot dogs, or picnics for her that day I am afraid. She said I took a long time getting here and severely dehydrated her doing it. She tried to make me an Independence Day baby but I just wouldn't budge until one minute after midnight. That put me into the 5th. Years later, I found that my parents were not married when I was born. Or rather, my mother was married but not to my father. I have no father listed on my mother's birth certificate. My mother is listed as single but I think she lied. When I found out about all this at 17 I confronted my father and he said it was true but that they got married later that year, september 29th after her divorce was final. I bought that. I didn't find out until July of this year after he died and we buried him that they never got married and that my mother did not get a divorce. She and her estranged spouse just took up separate lives. The rumor is that he remarried, which makes him a bigamist which I am sure didin't bother him in the least. I believe that he died a while back. Why my parents just didn't get married, well if you knew my dad you would know why. He was just hard headed. The world would work according to the way he wanted it to work or the world could go to hell. Consequently, since his death he has screwed my mother out of his pension, social security, and he had burnt through their life savings. I am a wee bit irritated with the dear old dead man. Love him, surely I do, see him when I see myself, big time, but I am still miffed with the old boy. Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:32:25 +0000 http://ourstory.com/thread.html?t=153575