Happy New Year

Let me tell you about my last year's resolution. I closed my eyes, squeezed them real hard, and pledged to blog more in 2011. This is what I got: 116 posts in 2011 as opposed to 226 posts in 2010 (although I was unemployed for the most part of the year) which means in simple mathematics that I need to make 110 posts between today and tomorrow (almost as much as I blogged this entire year). Even if I had a factory of ideas, I won't be able to achieve that. But still, this blog did survive somehow and it is now 3 years old. You can close this tab now and come back next year. Oh... and Happy "New" Year!

P.S. Some progress: 117 posts if you count this one!

New Year resolutions

Every beginning of a new year is an illusion of a new start. It is not hard to see that in reality it is not. Making resolutions is the silliest thing you would do in this case especially if they are of the kind: I will lose 5 Kilos, I will quit smoking, I will become a vegetarian, and the sort. Just remember the resolutions you made last new year, it is very unlikely that you remember what they were in the first place, but you know they were pretty strong. Then tell me about your progress on that one before making new resolutions. Woody Allen has a beautiful saying about that: If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

I mean, seriously?

Seriously, if you feel the urge to tell me the story of your life, write a book, a memoir, and I promise to read it. And since you have such a talent of remembering every single detail of your life, making links to other tiny details from your days on earth, describing where every furniture in your house was placed and where you bought it from, and opening parentheses and closing them a hundred times per minute, then you should seriously consider writing that down, because, it is very unlikely that I will listen to you beyond the first sentence. Look, summaries would do just fine here, give me room to imagine the rest, I promise I will decorate the setting you describe myself, beautifully too, not exactly as it is in your head, but does it really matter? Let's make a deal, if we are conversing over a drink, the story of your life should either end before I finish my first drink or let me lend you a piece of paper and a pen.

I am serious.

Dear Hamra hipsters, it seems, in case you have not noticed, that Hamra street has been lately invaded by very ordinary people, unlike you of course, and as I care about you and your uniqueness and coolness, I must warn you and draw to your attention that you probably need to look for a new virgin street to occupy in 2012. Try Karakas Street.

P.S. Thanks Ralph for the inspiration

Have a life!

There are women out there who tell you: Oh, my boyfriend, husband, lover, whatever, loves me so much, and cares about me and is so attentive to me, he even accompanies me to the hairdresser!!, and I wish to tell them: dears, dears, that he comes with you to the hairdresser is not a sign of love but a sign that he actually has no life.

Not even in your dreams

This is one of the most hilarious stories I heard recently: a single guy who recently turned religious and stopped having sex told that his biggest frustration now is that in his dreams a sexy woman would appear and ask him for sex and he would say: sorry ma'am but I can't do that anymore! then he wakes up and starts banging his head against the pillow shouting at himself: it is okay in the dream! it is okay in the dream!

Seriously?

Music can make you dance and nothing surprises me about that. It is somehow evidenced. But if it does make you orgasm too, then please tell me how, do share the knowledge please, because until then I will think that you look ridiculous.

Another same irony

You don't question the meaning of life when your survival is at stake. Ironically you start doing so when everything in your life starts making sense. There seems to be meaning in absurdity and the real is what makes you wonder.

Yes and No

Thirty is a tricky age at work; you are not young enough to always say 'yes' and bear the consequences nor old enough to comfortably say 'no' without bearing the consequences.

Marx

I always thought that when Karl Marx said religion is the opium of the people, he meant it metaphorically until I entered a church the other day and realized that it is an equally tripping experience.

Don't get inspired!

You get a lot of "where do you see yourself in 5 years" questions at job interviews, and I wish to answer, I honestly don't know the answer to that but I know where I see myself in 30 years (if I live that long). I want to have an early retirement, do some gardening, enjoy some quality time with my grandchildren, and do drugs and some other illegal stuff.

Listen,

There are moments when I don't listen to what you say, but write it down, and I am suddenly all ears (or eyes in this case). It is all words, but people have much less to teach you about than books.

Seriously,

This I find to be a good piece of advice: be serious about what you do, do it with a great deal of seriousness, but never take yourself too seriously.

Stereotypes

Stereotyping isn't funny but this one is. I was at an international conference a few days ago and a number of humanitarian organizations had stands displaying some of their promotional material. A white European woman in one corner was so happy when she was approached by a guy who said: hello, I am from Afghanistan, can I have a brochure please. The woman said: Oh, sure, we have them in Arabic too! here. The Afghan only said: I'll take the English one, thank you.

Meet the fake me

Someone I recently met said to me: you don't know your strengths and skills and you cover this up with lots of smiles. Obviously he doesn't know me at all and I can't tell him, those smiles are a cover up to how much I am bored with what you say. When some people got it all wrong and when those people think that they are always right, I let them be right and give them an additional wrong reason to be and I display some more of my bored smiles.

Listen to silence

You don't know what noise is until you have heard silence.

Come on...

I joined a conversation where some very boring people were discussing car manufacturers. Of course I had nothing at all to say on the subject matter but I was about to laugh when the topic suddenly turned into General Motors, a subject, ironically I know a lot about (if you read a previous post on that). My face suddenly lighted up, no one understood the sudden change from bored to entertained. I wasn't entertained by the discussion. It was deadly boring, but I was laughing inside at a joke between me and myself. I still didn't say anything, because I was thinking about how to sneak away unnoticed. Instead I played an episode from "Family Guy" in my head (peter addressing members of congress with come on... come on). It works. I laughed when they laughed only for a different reason. Boring people have an incredible ability to laugh at unfunny situations. Well, if everything happens for a reason, then in my case, they have been happening for a bad one.

The box we live in

When we were kids we were taught how to draw a house. I assume that most kids around the world draw houses pretty much the same way only if they were left to draw a house on their own, many of them would have drawn simple boxes on top of each other, or streets and bridges, tents, etc. They might add a window or leave out a chimney but that doesn't matter. They globalize and standardize your imagination in an irreversible way and then they tell you later in your life to 'think out of the box'!

Too late

There are moments when I think that there is no use arguing with old poeple when they can easily die before I can convince them. It is too late to argue with a soon to be "the late".

Interesting...

Some high profile people tend to say a lot of "I don't know" and it does sound like a very important and valuable statement.

Mr. Google

There are moments when I think that if Google was a man, I would marry him.

Vanity

As soon as I manifest the slightest signs of arrogance, I flip somewhere, I do or say something stupid, reminding me to tone down my vanity.

That awkward moment

Why is it that when I was young and whenever I was watching a movie, each time one of my parents joined, the actors start stripping and kissing...? You would be watching for over an hour with no single erotic scene, then the moment they step in the room, somehow, the actors conspire against you leaving you with raised eyebrows, a hesitant finger, and a remote control.

Neck-less

There are moments when I think that a neck is not enough to hold a whole head. What kind of a support pillar is this? The head should be right between the shoulders with a pivot mechanism that allows a full rotation.

I need to unlearn some stuff

I have been doing a lot of translation lately covering all sort of subjects, from the Kalahari deserts to the manufacturing of electronic microchips, subjects I have no interest whatsoever in learning, not now not in a million years, but I ended up knowing so much (more than anyone should) and having a lot to say if ever asked about the reproductive system and behavior of the Mopane worms and everything there is to know about General Motors and its Chevrolet cars, that I wish to unlearn all of that.

The Fall

I have an emotional weakness (sometimes physical) for the fall season. For some reason, it awakens in me nostalgic feelings and sets my mood to a sort of a reception mode. It is the fall rather than summer that is supposed to be the leisure time. These are the laziest months of the year, the days to curl up under a woolen blanket and dream, maybe remember. This is the season that brings back childhood memories and feelings. The sight of small kids wearing school costumes and colorful water bottles makes my stomach tickle as it did on my first day at school. The rain, the slippery streets, the crowds under umbrellas are to my eyes what music is to my ears. There is a feeling of cosiness in the sudden darkness that welcomes us earlier than we had expected. The fall is not a somber season as many people think and that feeling that you might confuse with sadness is rather charged with high voltages of innocence and peace.

Tribute to Arabic

I was thinking today that someone needs to integrate an Arabic thesaurus program in Word Document, but then I realized that some, if not most words in Arabic, have at least a hundred or more synonyms, take the word sword for example, or lion, can you imagine how the drop down list would look like? It would look funny, but if anything a source of pride for it only indicates how wealthy, accurate, abundant, and elegant the Arabic language is. So do take pride, but there is no harm in using just seif for sword and asad for lion and why use al-basita for earth? (especially after it has been proven scientifically wrong if you consider the origin of the word).

Yes Marcel, what you said equals treason!

Marcel Ghanem finally decided to unravel the real face of Lebanon: the garbage of the Middle East, he said, in his show yesterday about the environmental disaster in the country, a real scandal, although one everyone knows. This is a huge progress compared to his previous efforts to depict Lebanon and the Lebanese in the most chauvinistic ways, as the creme de la creme, and at a time when the Lebanese are rushing to vote for Jeita grotto, as the seventh wonder of the world. However, he suspiciously uttered some very unacceptable comments regarding Israel, but warned us of accusing him of treason. His comments were not only not innocent at all but also stupid. In context, the guy was surprised to know that the rivers in the South are the least polluted, compared to the rest of the country. He didn't take a moment to think of the reasons because his love for Israel betrayed him, Israel, the most racist and criminal so called state, albeit you could sense how he forced himself to call it enemy. He said something like: "One would be nostalgic for Israel's occupation days (decades would be a better word), it seems Israel preserved our water resources more than we did!!!!..." First, Marcel seems nostalgic for the Israeli occupation before learning this new fact, he just found a golden opportunity to express his love, or rather, was relieved to learn something he assumed supports this love. Second, he did not bother to ask why the South was less polluted. The first answer that comes to mind, although not likely plausible, would be: couldn't that be because the Southerners are more keen on the environment than others? That is surely not the case, but logic calls for you to consider such reasoning. Second, isn't it possible that the South isn't as industrial as the rest of the country which decreases water pollution? Third: isn't it possible that because of the occupation, the South is the least populated? Fourth: Israel withdrew from Lebanon, to your dismay, 11 years ago, don't you think that this is enough time for the Southerners you despise to pollute their water resources, but they did not? Fifth but most importantly: Israel contaminated the South with over four million cluster munitions, sabotaged our water pumps, and bombed a power plant resulting in the largest oil spill the Mediterranean has ever seen, but you allow yourself to even think that it was so keen on preserving our resources? So yes, Marcel, what you said equals treason. His guest on the other hand was no less keen on showing his love for Israel, he too forces himself to call it enemy. This guy said: "they have been telling us since the 50's that Israel wants to steal our water, but after seeing the pollution there, I don't think Israel cares much about it!!". That was not enough as he added "now that we know this isn't true, the problem is solved, we can now sign a peace treaty with Israel"!!! No dear, that is what you wish and will never get. Yes Marcel what you said is treason and you are afraid of being accused of harming tourism?! What a shame!

There is nothing going on in Syria!

A Syrian friend of mine who lives in Damascus is very cautious about talking politics on the phone, so when I ask her, what is going on in Syria, she says: nothing is going on in Syria, I will tell you all about what is NOT going on in Syria when I see you.

Sad truth!

Today I tried a new approach with child beggars, when they asked for money, I offered them candy and chocolate. None of them took my offer. Why would a kid refuse to take some free sweets even when they know they are not getting anything better? Later, my sister enlightened me: next time, offer cigarettes, weed, cocaine... and they would sadly take it!