Christmas Battlefield - A Little Late I Know!

I know I am a bit late telling this tale, but it ought to be told nonetheless!

It was supposed to be a regular family Christmas gathering at my grandmother's house in the village, just like every year. And so it had seemed at first. We ate and drank ourselves silly, and then one after the other, the family members started dozing off. Some of us stayed up playing poker and trying our luck for the New Year. Eventually, everyone went to bed except for my cousin, my brother and I. 

Apart from the sound of our glasses clinking against the table, it was almost totally silent. The silence didn't last long though. All of a sudden, we heard a voice coming out from one of the bedrooms. It was our relative, talking in his sleep once again. He had done so a bit earlier when he had dozed off on the couch, so we moved him to the bedroom thinking that it wouldn't occur again if he slept on a comfortable bed.

And oh how mistaken we were!!! I am sure most of you, dear readers, are aware of the fact that Lebanon has had its share of wars and conflicts over the years, and my relative used to work as a security agent for the headquarters of a Lebanese political party. He didn't serve during the war years, but still, the job seemed to leave its marks on him, in his dreams at least. He started calling out for his colleagues. Rachid, Mounir, Bachir, Toufic!!! (And the list of names went on and on and on...)

From what we could gather from the fragments he said aloud, he feared an attack from enemies, and he was trying to warn his friends. That went on for about 15 minutes, but then the situation started escalating in his unconscious. Soon enough he had been captured by the enemy forces, and he was screaming for his allies to come rescue him. Toufic, help! Mounir, don't let them kill me!

Although this may sound sad to you, it wasn't. Not in the least. That may be because we were drunk of course, but still, we managed to turn this scene into a hilarious one! We turned the house into a war zone, and we started adding our own bits to the script and lived the dream with our relative. My brother started making gunfire sounds every time our relative spoke. Pouboupoubov! Pouboupoubov! Pouboupoubov! 

Gradually, the rest of the family members started waking up to the ringing sounds of our laughter. And the script just kept on expanding with vivid details. The memory of the war took an alternative turn, and when we asked another older relative to remind us of the signature Van Halen theme that was used by a popular radio station during the war years with the ever present words "Maktabou el tahrir fi khabarin jadid" - which translates to: the editorial office with a new piece of news - his interpretation literally came as follows: Bichtik Bichtik  Bichtik  Bichtik, Tararararaaaaaaaaa!

Our sleeping relative kept on living the battle, and our minds kept soaring with more and more imagination. My grandmother awoke and proposed to wake our relative from his dream. We advised her to hold a white flag before entering his room. And of course we didn't let her wake him up! This wasn't something we could live every day after all.

We started laying our heads low while moving from room to room to protect ourselves from the bombs. We built illusionary barracks of sand around us to shelter ourselves. We rationed ourselves with all sorts of food before going to hide undergrounds. We lived an imaginary war for one night. We made fun of war and we let our minds and our imagination create a better version of it, a less sour one.

This is by no means a tale to underestimate the gravity of war or to undervalue the bitterness and the sadness our people had to live through. It was just that the opportunity presented itself under relatively better circumstances for us to laugh at war and make at least one nice memory out of it.

It was a Christmas to be remembered. Sadly not all the family members were present due to traveling and work circumstances, so this one is for them, we wish you had been there with us to share these beautiful moments and have a laugh with us over a drink and a losing poker game (at least for me!). Wishing you all a happy 2012.

I miss it

Living that is. I miss living. I could end the blog right here, but I will elaborate since I have nothing else to do. 

I am alive, true. And although I never thought I would miss drinking or partying and the like, I actually do.

I can't stand sitting in this grim coffee shop anymore.

I miss having a job, having money, shopping, among other things of course.

It seems to me as if I am the only 25 year old who spends her Friday nights online, only virtually living. 

What I would give for a live game of scrabble instead of the thousands I play online. 

What joy I would feel if I liked something and were able to just go in and buy it.

I know most people think I am a spoiled girl who allows herself all kinds of privileges and who never manages to save a dime. And what if I am? It is just who I am.

It is true that being that kind of girl leaves me clueless when I find myself without money, but I am impressing myself by coping with it.

I am not exactly happy with my current situation, but not breaking down is an achievement in itself for someone like me.

I forgot why I wanted to elaborate on this. I just want to say that I miss having plans for the weekend or something. Maybe soon. Who knows.

Insomnia

Hello, my name is Mireille and I am an insomniac. Such a cliché you may say, but wait till I tell you who greeted me one night while I was fighting my way to sleep. 

I was tired and had to wake up early the next morning. It was already too late to hope for a decent rest, but I thought I should get as much sleep as I could get, even if it was only for a couple of hours. 

As I struggled, I remembered what a friend of mine had told me once about relaxing one's eyelids in order to go to sleep and so I did, I relaxed them and waited endlessly to fall asleep, but it just wouldn't work. 

I tried to think about what people do to go to sleep, and after some pondering, I remembered the oldest trick in the book, and that is how I decided to count the sheep!

I closed my eyes one more time (eyelids relaxed), and lavishly planted the prairie in my imagination with the greenest and freshest of lawns. I put a door frame in the middle of the prairie and stood by it. The sheep started coming, and I started counting.

I had counted around 300 sheep when I remembered a billboard next to the office where I used to work at the time that encourages Lebanese to use the Arabic language and I realized I had been counting in French. I told the sheep to go back from where they came from and started the count again, this time using Arabic numbers.

Having counted yet another batch or 300 or so sheep, I decided that I need a way that enables me to identify my sheep if I should like to count them again another night, so I told the sheep to back away again and I labeled them each with a sort of marathon costume with a number, and when I was through, I counted yet again 300 or so sheep before I realized the labels were in Latin numbers!!! Horror of horrors!!!

"Back away sheep!"

I relabeled the sheep in Arabic numbers and made sure to count them in Arabic too this time.

Another batch of 300 had been counted one more time before I reckoned that the stable they were going in to only had a door frame, no walls and nothing to keep my sheep from straying or to keep a wolf from snatching one of them. I decided to place a bell around each sheep's neck and started counting again...Do I really need to tell you that I made - yet again - the counting in French mistake? I am sure you would rather be spared!

Before I decided to go to sleep, I had been watching the David Letterman show, and I think it is fairly understandable what had happened next. The bells around the sheep's necks were tolling and tolling, which gave me an awful headache, and hallucination at this point is perfectly justifiable...The sheep with their marathon labels (in Arabic!) and their bells around their necks changed their heads! Yes, their heads were replaced by David Letterman's head laughing at me!!!! Just imagine, or can you??

The other night, I couldn't sleep either, but I was determined not to count the sheep, understandably if you will. Instead, I recalled what another friend had advised me and I thought I should go with her opinion this time. She had told me I should decide what I would like to dream about and that will make me drift effortlessly to sleep in order to see the dream I longed to glimpse.

And since I had a feeling of heaviness over me that night, I decided I would like to dream of something light and floating in a way. The first thought that came to my mind was flying, but then I decided against it because it felt like I needed to be doing some sort of effort to fly, and I was tired. I then thought of being in a room full of feathers, but considered floating on a beautiful lake in a cave before I finally opted for the lake with the feathers spread in it.

Yes I had decided! This is what I want to dream about tonight! I want to float in that lake and be surrounded by feathers on the surface of the water!

Such a beautiful dream I am about to have, I thought as I relaxed my eyelids and chased the last sheep from my mind. Such beautiful dreams... oh wait, the feathers, where will they come from? From birds! Innocent Birds!!! But hunting is prohibited in Lebanon!!! Come here hunter! Police, quick! Arrest this man for he had broken the law and hurt innocent, innocent fragile birds!!! Police.... I called while floating in the lake of guilt and tumultuous sleep...

Your Fuckin Standards

As bloody usual, I have nothing in particular to say. I just feel like swearing a lot tonight.

I rehearsed yet another silent/ in my head monologue last night while I was trying to go to sleep. I have acquired this habit ever since I was a little kid. After another endless horrible day has washed down, I give out long bold speeches in my mind, addressing all the people who dedicated their day to annoying or upsetting me in one way or another. 

If the issue is private, I am usually standing up, facing the person with my harsh words, words I would never muster the courage to say for real.

If the issue is more of a collective one, mainly economical, I would be standing up on a podium with a large crowd in front of me. I would be taking down politicians like it is nobody's business.

Last night, the monologue was addressed to a number of people, some whom know personally, and others whom I don't.The topic was "people's Fuckin standards".

I am sorry but I can't live up to the standards!!! I mean who can??

It is all kinds of standards that I am talking about, starting from how people think you should look and ending with what they think you should do with your life.

Don't get me wrong. It is not that I care about people's standards and their stupid opinions, it is just that I am thoroughly annoyed by their constant nagging and their random splashing of unsought and unnecessary advice.

I will not stop smoking because YOU think it affects my health.

I will not live through yet another diet because YOU think I ought to be thinner.

I will not work as a waitress because YOU think it is better than sitting around unemployed.

I can go on and on with the list, but I won't, because I think you get the point.

This begs the question: What are standards? Who creates them? And most importantly, why do we even worry about them?

Shouldn't everyone have their own standards and live by those and those only?

You can go ahead and shove your standards up your asses - I told you I am in a swearing mood - because that is exactly where they belong. You don't need to share them, you don't need to "spread" them. All you need to do with your fuckin standards is live by them - if you can. And good luck with that.

Girls, Gays And Tea Selections

I myself am wondering what I really want to say in this article. It is just that the title has been haunting me for over a week now. 

I got the idea when I noticed several of my friends - girls and gays especially - fussing about their tea selections. I simply didn't understand what it was ever really about.

For me, tea means a yellow Lipton tea bag, a mug of hot water and two cubes of sugar. For them, tea means a ridiculously colorful selection of boxes, paper bags, nylon bags and tasteless aromas.

When did tea become so complicated??

I remember when I was little and we would go to my grandparents' house in the village, my grandmother would send us out to the woods to collect flowers - I am not sure of the flowers' name but they were pretty much basic white flowers with lots of petals - and then she would somehow make tea leaves from the bouquet. 

There is a small coffee shop - or tea shop to be more precise - that I really like, but I stopped going there a while ago, because frankly, I never know what to order. And whatever I do eventually order turns out to suck! People specifically go to that shop because of its wide variety of teas. I have tried nearly everything. Jasmin tea, blueberry tea, bla bla tea. None ever worked for me. None did the trick. I always end up with the feeling that I am the victim of a tea trick or something as stupid as that thought. 

I am simply dumbfounded by all this complexity. I mean tea should just be tea. And this goes for all kinds of beverage. I couldn't care less if the coffee I am drinking is a Brazilian brew or a Colombian one. You could sell me a Malaysian brew for all I care. Coffee is coffee. It is either good or bad, regardless its country of origin, regardless whose feet it was stomped on with.

Stung By A Bee

Last night my mom tricked me into sleeping at my grandmother's place in a village I really despise. We were supposed to come back in the evening, but it turned out she had other plans and I had no choice but to stay put.
It wasn't so bad. I had fun playing cards and all but still, I felt tricked. I wasn't there by my own free will.
After everyone went to sleep, I set my laptop on the balcony and sat there for a while. The power got cut and I was out of battery. While I was shutting my laptop down, to top it all, a bee stung me in my neck.
I am more pessimistic than ever these days. I am broke. I am unemployed with no prospects for a job. I am single. I am lonely. I am surrounded by all kinds of people but I am too impatient for people. I am not sure how that may be but I am.
The bee sting gave me the feeling of being bitten by a vampire, especially since the bee chose my neck to dump its poison.
I am not sure if it is the effect of loneliness, but I am having lots of illusions lately. Everything has a weird connotation to it. Maybe it is the boredom and not the loneliness after all.
Spilling white chawarma sauce all over my favorite top had a connotation as well, although I am not sharing this one.
I have nothing to say really. I thought the bee would cover a larger subject but it doesn't.

Reminiscence

When does one stop reminiscing on the good old days? Why did we fail to notice how good they were when we were living them? Why is it that we have missed on savoring those days when we had the chance to do so?

So many phases, so many friends, so many moments… Why did they seem so ordinary at the time? Why do they seem so special now? 

What was it that was missing then and what is it that they can fulfill now?

Most people’s memories are triggered by a place, a song, a situation… Mine begs to differ: it is triggered by its pure and simple existence. I keep finding myself lost in thought, going back in time, trying to recapture those moments and those friends in their purest essence. 

I look like I have moved on. I haven’t. My all remains in those days. Each meaningful day that passes keeps a token of me in it. My mind keeps living those days and those days keep hacking into my system in turn. 

I wish the relationship I have with my days is a platonic one, but it isn’t. It is definitely a lot more sadistic than I would have liked it to be. 

I can even find it in me to feel nostalgic about the bad days. I can’t push myself to regret them. Something about those bad ones, or something about me for that matter, just can’t overcome them. 

Do you smell unresolved issues? Ah well, maybe.

Do you think I might be a bit off? I am. I am not sure what the hell I am writing about. 

I am looking around me today, trying to do some effort, trying to fit in somehow. I can’t. It is as if today wasn’t in my calendar, as if I am being compelled to live a day I wasn’t meant to live. I was supposed to skip this day. 

Not that there is anything different about today. Today looks almost exactly like all my unemployed status days. I just don’t feel like living it today.