The Musical

I woke up in a good mood today. I had music playing in my head. It was early.

I kept singing in my head till 2:00 p.m. That is when the electricity got cut. 

I said a heartfelt thank you in my head to my good friends who bought me an IPod for my birthday. Such a great invention!

The music started blasting in my ears, and for once, I let it lead me to where it wanted.

I caught myself getting up and dancing on the balcony. Alone.

I wondered if anyone could see me from the cracks of the curtains, and if anyone did, what would they think? Not that I care, not today, today is the day of me not caring, but I was just curious.

I don't feel like reading these days. My mind is simply elsewhere. I cannot concentrate.

I was dancing in front of the book, as if to spite it, as if to tell it that I had found something better to do with my time, at least for today.

Today is such a peaceful day. I am catching up with work. I am not eating a lot. I am enjoying privacy.

I miss my privacy. I miss independence, although even for a one day reminder, I recalled how annoying it could be at times, especially since I had to shower in a most primitive way AND using candlelight.

I kept wondering, what if I opened the curtains, would my dream of living a musical come true?

I guess I will never know now, simply because of my cowardice. I am sure 100% of you would - logically - love to assure me that no housewives would come out to their balconies banging on their pots and pans if they saw me dancing, and that no, musicals do not really happen.

But I would like to hold on to the part of me that still finds it in itself to fantasize, to live a little, even if it was only in my head.

Just imagine how nicer the world would be if housewives took a live musical break once per day. What a fantastic lunch break it would be for workers to watch them, and then join them.

I imagine a happier world, a simpler one. A world where you don't have doubts, questions or grieves for just an hour per day. An hour just to shake it on the beat of wonderful melodies.

I forgot to mention I was wearing my pajamas, well technically I am still wearing them, but anyway, and when I caught my reflection on the TV set, I wondered whatever the hell happened to pajama parties. I am not sure if I had ever been to one, but I felt it was a great shame that no one throws those anymore. I would love to go dance my head off in pajamas, just what a blast it would be! How comfy! How refreshing and liberating!

And then when I tried to concentrate on the moves I was making, I noticed that nothing I was doing would ever make sense to anyone since I was the only one hearing the music that made me move this way or that. I imagined yet another great party theme, an IPod party! Oh man are the Apple people going to be grateful to me for throwing such a genius idea towards them! Yeah yeah I know I am babbling, but I do believe I am still drunk, last night's effects mind you.

Did I mention yet that I am now an official fan of white wine? I recently acquired the taste and I loved it. Now it doesn't seem that I can stop sipping it.

The few brain cells I still have left are sending me yet another wonderful idea. What about mixing the two great themes together and having a pajama IPod party?? Wouldn't THAT be something??

Yours truly,

A wine and apple juice addict.

Do You Believe In Luck?

Do you? I do. I do because I believe in everything that offers both a thesis and an antithesis. 

The thesis goes as follows: You are lucky.

The antithesis is therefore logically: You are unlucky.

Luck. People crave it. People want it more than anything. They want it to interfere with every aspect of their lives. Work, family, cards, games, school, love, finding a cab, buying a house, traveling, lottery, etc...

People even depend on it. Take poker players for example.

Well let us get back to our constant subject, me. Me and my luck. Or my lack of it to be more precise.

Have you ever had the feeling that it is all backfiring on you? That somehow whatever you do and no matter how much effort you devote to your ends, something always gets in the way?

I am sure you have. But I am also sure you have never experienced it for 25 consecutive years.

I have.

My sole wish at the moment is that something, anything, works for me. I don't really care if it is as simple as finding a ride to work easily. Even that will leave me content and most grateful. I am that desperate for some luck in any shape, any.

I would love it if one day I would manage to skip the insomnia part and go right to the part where I snore.

I will wrap it up with this thought in hope it will come to life tonight.

You Guessed It, I Am Bored Again

You know you are so bored when you start playing minesweeper again. Take it from someone who knows, who has been there and has done that, playing minesweeper that is.

You know you are so bored when you advertise your boredom on your Facebook page and then you snap at anyone who tries to either joke about it or make it easier on you.

You know you are so bored when you wish your friends would come back to Lebanon for the sole purpose of entertaining you.

You know you are so bored when you are one step away of tossing your laptop and trampling on it.

You know you are so bored when you are unconsciously eavesdropping on people around you in the coffee shop and suddenly you feel exasperated but without knowing why. It takes you at least 10 to 15 minutes before realizing it is their banal exchange that is getting on your nerves.

But then again, any exchange at the moment, no matter how banal you might esteem it to be, could be a cure to this suffocating boredom.

Boredom and loneliness if I may add.

Or are both words synonyms? Are they the two facets of the same coin?

Getting back to the subject, you know you are bored when you start creating or even recycling nonsense philosophical matters.

You know you are so lonely when the void in your stomach isn't a sign of hunger. And that is not philosophy, that is simply a fact.

You know you are so lonely and so bored when you start doing things you wouldn't usually do, things you wouldn't usually approve of others doing, let alone you.

You know you are so lonely and so bored when you try to push it forward although you are not convinced. You know you are wrong, you know it is wrong, you know this is leading nowhere, well nowhere good at least, and yet, you do it.

You know you are so lonely and so bored when you don't really care. You say you care. You know you should care. But you simply don't. 

You know you are so lonely and so bored when you take hours to shower, pick some clothes, get dressed and do the make up and hair parade.

You know you are so lonely and so bored when after you are done with the parade, you head to the coffee shop with hopes that you will have enough energy to go somewhere else after a while. But you never go.

You know you are so lonely and so bored when you get stubborn. 

You know you are so lonely and so bored when you write a blog for the sake of writing it. You have nothing to say, nothing new to add, nothing meaningful to share, and still, you do it just to do something, something that is not necessarily new, not necessarily different, just another variety of your favorite activities; you love to read, you love to write, and you love to use your dying laptop, therefore you write another blog.

On Boredom and Routine

I don't know how many nights I have spent at this forsaken spot in Sassine Square during the past ten years or so, but a good estimate would be "most of them".

The coffee shop changed. The people who used to come in here changed. The cigarettes shop changed. The taxi drivers who used to drop me off home after long sleepless nights changed. And yet, I am still here. 

My friends joke about it sometimes, they say I am a construction column in this square. They say they could give directions based on my position in here. The second building to the left after Mireille they would say. 

Even when I do have plans for the evening, I end up here afterwards. I can't seem to be able to detach myself from this place. 

This piece of land holds many memories, many souvenirs, good and bad, and the way I see it, I can't move on and leave those moments behind. What if I never get to experience similar moments again? What if in case I move away the memories would fade and I would have no other way to recapture them?

Unemployment only feeds my addiction. Insomnia creeps in on me like a lost shadow, a desired one. I have no reason to wake up tomorrow. I don't have to be anywhere at any given time. So I am here. In the forsaken coffee shop. 

I read a bit. I play some virtual poker. I meet some friends. I have coffee. Then I have Diet Pepsi. A cookie too perhaps.

I am immersed in the music buzzing in my ears. I am enjoying quirky melodies. I am not sure what my taste really is anymore.

I secretly wish something would change. Here or elsewhere. Mostly here though. All of me is screaming for innovation, for surprise, for a thrill of some kind, of any kind.

What is it that I would really like to have most now, I ask myself. Is it money? Is it love? Is it success? Is it merely a job? Is it health?

I ask myself and I don't find the answer. I am not sure what I am craving. I am not sure what exactly is it that I want most, most badly.

Would any of the above do? Would one alone be enough? Is any even possible for such a bored soul?

If a soul is still in there indeed.

I just need change.

The other day, I decided to shower without scrubbing myself. It is a random embarrassing fact I know. But at the spur of the moment, it felt so needed, it felt so secretive, so innovative, so fresh, so liberating. Would anyone notice? Would I smell or something? What would not using a loofah for a day bring to the day? It brought nothing of course, but in the heat of boredom, it felt like it would. It didn't though.

The next day, I decided to take it a notch further. I didn't wash my hair! It is the extent you would go to if you were me. For years, I haven't left the house without washing my hair. I felt itchy the whole day, but that was about it. Nothing else happened following the unthinkable act of not washing my hair.

Tonight, I am flirting with the idea of cutting my hair short. But I won't do it. I don't have enough guts for it. I am such a wimp.

Today I heard dad's war stories for the nth time. I hate to admit it, but to the resonance of those stories, I wish a civil war would take place. It does seem very exciting, thrilling even, all the risks and such.

Page 144. Just a note in order not to forget to mark the passage in the book. I can't seem to find my marker in the mess of my huge purse.

Oh how many sentences and paragraphs have I highlighted so far. To what end? The question hangs in the air.

My mother wanted to take advantage of my time off. She asked me to place my collection of postcards in 2 big bags so she could get them out of her way, and away from me. Not that I ever look at them anymore, but still, now they are far and I can't look at them if I felt like it.

I am just nagging. About nothing and everything. Nagging is in my genes.

I wonder when my phone is going to ring next. Probably tomorrow. But who will it be? What will it regard? A job perhaps? A date? Yeah, as if. 

I dreamed that I was driving my father's car the other day, and I was colliding with other cars to the point of almost causing accidents several times. I looked it up, I couldn't find a definite interpretation but for all it is worth, driving in your dream represents your path in life.

I am also dreaming a lot about cats lately. Before that it was mice. Go figure. A chase maybe.

I should get that tooth fixed, but the appointment keeps getting cancelled. Either the doctor's parents are in the hospital, one at a time or simultaneously, either he has a union meeting, either he is having kidney stones removed all of a sudden. 

Good night. Well maybe not immediately, but eventually.