Sleepless in Beirut

Change of address

2012-01-24T14:57:00.000+02:00

Sleepless in Beirut joins the circus:

Circus Beirut

eighty-three

2011-12-16T14:51:00.000+02:00

21:59:02

I’m sleepless in Beirut.

And bam, I miss my mom. It’s like the number of times you need to drive down a road to realize that there is a new building and it’s been under construction for months.

What is she up to? What is her life? Would she answer your tiresome child’s questions with the same answer? Would she distract you with a toy? Would she comfort you with a soothing nod? Would she tell you to wait until you’ve grown up?

For a large part of my youth, my mom was stability. My mom was the smell that would never change, the smile that would never wane, the cook that would never fail, the strength that I would never question. She was the point of reference for what was right and what was wrong or for what I could get away with. She was the threshold of behaviour I would expect from others.

“Not even my mom…!”

My mom, unbeknownst to me, unacknowledged by the rebel, was my idol. If I had ever mentally criticized her demeanor, or verbalized it at a later age, it is the demeanor I am now criticized for. If she had a vice, I have their double. If she had qualities, and they were and are plenty, I hope to acquire them.

If my education was heavily paid for, it should have gone straight to my mom who taught me more with her calm tone and gestures than did ever a pot-bellied teacher with his sheet of attendance tucked in between his wallet and belt.

If I succeed to fail enough to get anywhere, the spotlight should shine on my mom who never claimed to know better or rob me of my lessons, but was always there to remind me of what was most important and that was to clean up my own mess.

I owe it to her, the underdog, the silent mountain, the umbilical book, to ask her the questions she asks when she sees me looking blankly into the distance and to grant her every wish even if the only thing she has ever explicitly asked for was for me to vacuum every grain of happiness that lay before me.

eighty-two

2011-12-14T08:37:00.000+02:00

00:00:00

I’m sleepless in my room.

“You’ve got a little ego throw-up on the corners of your mouth”, I tell myself.

Green in colour, liquid, with little substance.

We gather round to watch it sway and stumble, golden wings flailing desperately for a final moment of glory, and run around headless bumping into walls and furniture.

Rationale starts counting its last minutes.

Tick-o, tick-o,

Tact. Tact. Tact.

Tactile, slippery.

Tactic, mirrored

Butchered, butchered

Flapping, clapping

Up and roar

Rooting, hooting

Bridal shooting

Dip and lick and sip

This shit

Ego, echo, echo, echo,

Ergo ego go to bimbo

Limbo

Spin and throw your heavy turban

Fall and drown

And leave me nimble

Sharp alert one eye wide open

Thumb on hole

Lucid whole

Thinker tanker

Bombed your home

No more bunker

Tea hay tchee

Ee and ee

Lynched and hanging from a poplar tree.

eighty-one

2011-12-07T11:52:00.000+02:00

18:51:00

I’m sleepless in my mind.

There are people that I used to know. There are people that I could’ve known, better. There are people that I can still know, because I didn’t cut them out.

As simple as these words are, the act of cutting someone out is not something I find difficult.

Social flux is in overdrive and has been since I first boarded an airplane. We move so fast and so far, it’s necessary to cut emotional ties, severe attachments, drop sandbags and spread wings. But over time, it becomes almost mechanical, as intuitive as flight or fight.

Fight.

Fight for what?

Fight for reunion. Fight for those that accept to harbor you when there is no place to land.

I had lunch with Freud and dinner with Leon. You know it’s been a long time since you’ve seen someone when each remembers something the other has forgotten: a song, broken glasses, the first encounter, an old salad recipe, the old apartment. Flashbackdance.

Freud! If only! All his wit and intelligence and spur-of-the-moment enthousiasm is condensed in one little imperfection that seems to lie somewhere between his incisor and dimple. I don’t even know if it’s something I perceive rather than see, but there’s a hook in that smile that pulls me back to the first glance I threw him in that dark low-ceiling club.

We had lunch in the waiting room, while flipping through our updates. After a ten minute interruption from a wayward appointment, he walked back in just as my soft tummy wanted to take on its instinctive role as mother pillow and he read my mind.

As the doorbell made itself clear that it was time for me to go, I thought that it wasn’t fair to have one meal per year when there is a necessity of three per day.

I rang the doorbell as I left for the sake of that extra effort.

Hours later, I walked into the restaurant to see Leon sitting on the green couch, as tanned and crisp as ever. A taco on guacamole leather!

I would have rather stayed with my girl friend for the rest of the night, but it had been over three years since I had last seen him that a proper sit down after countless cancellations would hurt less than a hovering obligation.

But instead of being quick and awkward, the evening soon lost itself in a clock-free jungle. If there had ever been a slightly longer than necessary pause, the adjacent table of pubescent tantet-to-be provided enough entertainment. What nerve must an LV certified sixteen year old have to talk down to a guy who works ten hour shifts a day to afford commuting to work on a mobilette?! If you drive a HUMMER, the least you can be is HUMBLE.

Seriously now, where is the tantet training camp so I can kick some humility into it? In France, you’d be forced into hiding! But here…the red carpet matches the sole of your heels and licks them clean just in case they failed to recognize the price tag the first time you stood in line with one shoe on its tip so as to better bare the flaming baboon ass.

I have no problem with well-earned cheques, hell, I have a secret weakness for Maseratis, but please, if you’re barely legal, stop screaming like a seagull. We recognize, don’t worry. Your lack of humility is humiliating, nothing else.

Anyway.

I walked out filled with more love than I had felt in days and even though it had nowhere to go, it glued the cut-up paper strips that were impossible to stitch back but were worth holding together.

Do I have it in me to fight for Departed? I have a feeling I shut him out only to save energy and not to reset. But then again there is a part of me that hopes to be infected by a different virus, one that spreads uncontrollably, that never wavers, that consumes, that overwrites, that never stops because it always manages to reinvent itself, that never crashes because its capabilities are infinite, that grows into infinity, that…

ESC.

One command at a time woman, one bit won’t take as big a byte out of your greedy heart.

the in-between: la rue X

2011-12-05T10:43:00.001+02:00

Oblique shaves of light illuminate the soft fine down a brilliant orange as it rises to its ends with the thrill of turning a corner. A narrow street, half ablaze, half in shadow offers itself yet again to a stranger a millionth time over. Eyes wide with dreams caress the smooth stones quarried from below, brought to light and cut some hundreds of years ago. The windows reflect the particular sky, a sky which a darker tone later will disappear as the light bulbs switch on one by one, illuminating the homes of the lucky few that call this street their own. With a furtive lick, the crumb of pistache crispy almond dough is brought down from in between the sweetened lip and gum to melt on the mattress of a tongue seduced. The air is still and warm, the only quiver is that of a heart skipping over the disbelief that it is finally here.

“…au cinquante six, sept, huit, peut importe…”

With each step, he counts me in.

“…de la rue X…”

And I see the door.

A silky ambiguity descends from the imperceptible and it’s as though all the scattered pieces I had left deliberately for me to pick up upon return condensed to complete this one single moment before they exploded back to different corners of the globe.

An unprecedented wholeness meant only for pious pilgrims came into being and then vanished as if to announce its existence and instill within me a craving to find it again.

I waited to see if it would brush past me a second time, but all that remained was summer air and l’eau a la bouche.

I looked up at the heavily curtained window in recognition and continued to the end of the street and around the corner into a blazing prism of light.

eighty

2011-12-02T18:59:00.000+02:00

20:54:33

I’m sleepless in my bed.

The cat purrs at my feet drawing a sound barrier between me and the rest of the house. Sitting at the head of the bed, beneath an orgy of plaster-white cherubs, I slide my feet beneath the covers and the warmth-radiating feline. In turn, she gets up and slithers her way beneath the duvet only to curl up in the arch of my bent legs as though in a voluntary sacrifice of canine generosity. I really don’t know how she does it throughout the night sandwiched in between my hips and the heavy bed linens, in pitch-black darkness without a fresh supply of air. But every night, she returns. And I only need to lift the duvet a little bit for her to dive right in.

I thought I’d do the same once Departed came back, but he is nowhere to be seen on the landing strip. It’s a problem, but it might be a good one.

You see, I met Departed a few weeks before he travelled. It was a “Have you met Ted?” encounter at a gathering, which turned into last-man-standing party, characteristic of those people who talk and talk and talk and with each word the magnets are rotating a little faster, until they are spinning like gyroscopes, standing their hairs on end, creating an ethereal glow within the other and self, so bright it fizzes and whizzes and both feel the tension and the charges building up and both know that the only thing that will deliver relief is a simple –

But you know you want the tension building up, because the higher the tower, the more fantastic the fall. I’d take out a piece by sliding to his side. He’d remove a piece by placing his heavy arm around me. I’d pull out the middle part by placing my inner arm on top of his smooth hard knee. He’d strike out a tricky one by laughing hard and leaning into the core of my body. Little by little, the precarious tower began to lean until –

I wasn’t looking for anyone, but we were getting along like two buttered toasts. As the guests started to disappear one by one, it was clear that we were staying for each other. We left with the last of our friends who had stayed for us as well and who made serious effort to make conversation when Departed loomed over me, blocking out the annoyingly bright street lamp, and –

But we were under influence, exhausted, smelly and even though the tension was broken, I was too numb to feel that surge of ecstasy, so I pushed him away saying this was not the right time. So he immediately created an excuse to have drinks the following day.

What followed were beautiful developments. Departed was unlike anyone I have ever had as my Cupid’s target. He’s a big boy, buff as polished marble, with a myriad of facial expressions that change his name, his age, his sexuality. He can be sharp, he can be rounded, he can be rough and he can be cozy. Our tastes were polar opposites, but when we fell asleep the fit was perfect, every limb like plasticine sculpted over and under and around and every difference melted into the sleepy sea of creases, folds and rolling hills.

But my man is gone now. It is a problem. One, he is not mine. Two, it’s been too long. Three, I like my dish served hot. And this one has been left out in the open past its expiry date. So I surrender to impatience, I surrender to the possibility of this whole thing being a fluke, I surrender until his Arrival.

It will just have to start all over again. Or not at all.

seventy-nine

2011-11-18T18:23:00.005+02:00

17:24:53

I'm sleepless in Beirut.

"Je crois qu'elle me plait..."

The Nth time I hear him pledge his love to a girl he has just shared the air in the room with.

I met Dot via a dot.com. We chatted briefly, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy and we agreed to meet the following day in front of a bar in the street where I used to live.

I got off the 21st, reliving the sweet taste of an old familiar routine, waited for the light to turn red, crossed the street before the crowd of tourists switched into gear, crossed the second light, but instead of going straight through the huge arcade, I walked around to gather some courage, to calm myself down and to freeze the feeling of nausea that never fails to show up in my stomach whenever I am meeting someone strange.

I saw him leaning against a street pole, casually looking into his phone and observing the surroundings through the blurry mist that lay outside his focal point.

He looked decent, but not as masculine as his photos promised, more retired ballerina than bull-fighter. And he was not the height he claimed to be. As I approached him with my calculative gaze I missed the equations he used to go up all the way to 1.75m. Soooo not his height.

We walked down the winding street, stretched by the setting sun rays and the languid shadows of people strolling, successfully making conversation, that felt genuine yet, still, slightly constructed. At Odeon, every cafe and bar within our view seemed either too full or too touristic or or or...so we settled for something neither of us knew, liked or disliked. A perfect neutral ground for social experimentation.

Dot was interesting. Interesting in the sense that his curiosity was still alive and a-poking. His manner was powder-room soft, his sentences well articulated, perhaps too much, rehearsed...? His best quality to surface within half an hour was his honesty.

"Je suis marié."

"Comment? Où est ta bague?!"

"Marié mais en train de me divorcer."

It's a funny feeling. So he was someone with whom some girl fell in love with and thought they could have a life together. Wow. But also, he was someone with whom the dream didn't take flight. Daaaang.

But I wasn't looking for a flight. I had two months left in Paris and all I wanted was a sweet ride to take for a spin.

I began feeling increasingly nervous, but I didn't immediately feel the anxiety, instead, I read it in my hands. My fingers were playing with my hairband, contorting it into spectacular shapes. This meant only one thing - I was losing control of the situation and I tried to restore some power to myself by moulding an elastic band. I had to get out of here.

"Je ne me sens pas bien."

"Qu'est ce que t'as."

"Je suis nerveuse..."

"A cause de moi?"

"Je ne sais pas, mais en tout cas, je le sens. Je ne sais pas quoi faire avec mes mains."

"Tu veux qu'on bouge d'ici? On peut aller chez moi, j'ai du fromage, des tomates, de pancetta..."

"Chez toi? Hmmm, je ne sais pas si..."

"Non, non, rien ne va se passer. Je te promet."

And that is how control was back in my deck of cards. I learned that in anxiety-ridden situations the best way to go is to address the anxiety. Most of the time, people are surprised by the claim.

"You? Nervous?!"

Few people have the X-ray vision that your paranoia invents.

So over to his house we went. As with most Parisian apartments I had lived in or visited, it was on the last floor. He opened up the rooftop window, we climbed out, laid out the plates, cutlery, nibbles and a large globe of light, and suddenly the scene turned all gooey and movie-like. Minus the romance.

The romance was waiting for us lower below, contained by the warmly lit walls. As I sat on the sofa, he inconspicuously moved over to the piano and began playing one of my all-time favourite piano pieces. Smooth criminal.

After a couple of beautifully played pieces, he sat down next to me and it felt like the famous Hamlet quote, but in a naughty context.

It was awkward, I threw my cardigan over my head, in what I will forever remember as the unsmoothest randomest move I ever pulled out of my sleeve, and said that I had to go.

In the corridor, he said, "Embrasses-moi".

He was shorter than me, I knew it wouldn't work, but I leaned forward anyway.

And suddenly life was complicated by a simple desire to make that stupid cliche moment linger, a desire to avoid the greasy metro poles, to forget that I had work tomorrow, to forget that the timing of things mattered.

Finally, I pulled away and out the door.

But the next day, I was back, with my suitcase and all. That is how I moved from dot.com to Dot's in 36hours.

seventy-eight

2011-11-13T23:52:00.000+02:00

22:31:18

I'm sleepless in Beirut.

I succumb to the miss. I succumb to the wait. I succumb to the weight of his absence, a strange fruit to replace a lightness so feather-light it was barely there.

I thought attachment needed a leash, dependence needed a habit, sequence needed a prerequisite.

But he just had to disappear for the magic to happen.

So here I am sitting like a white innocent rabbit in a top hat, waiting for the world to pause, for his sign, a wink, whatever, waiting for his hand to reach for me, waiting to be part of the show.

But the perspective of the white rabbit looking upwards is narrowly defined by the circular lining, his claustrophobia carefully contained in a cylinder and his anticipation loudly churning his insides to quivering bits.

The audience is at his whim, not mine, and the best I can do in this act is be as discrete in my waiting as possible, as quiet in my want, as shallow in my desire, my ears tucked in as hard as he is far away from me.

All this, and the curtains have yet to be parted.

Dear Departed, come back.

seventy-seven

2011-11-03T20:01:00.000+02:00

19:18:17

I'm sleepless in Beirut.

Red velvet and I want you to know that you'll always get your way...and I shiver.

Did I know that I'd always be waiting for you?

No. But I traded it all for you the moment I let you wrap your arms around me.

I hugged Botticelli and started crying like a baby for all the times I had been strong against my nature. My nature kicks slippers off my feet, my nature blows hair unto my face, my nature oils me up and sends me running through tight doorways.

Slip.
Right.
Through.

It's easy being back. It's easy to fall in love again. It's easy to forget what I had packed for my departure. Hopes? Dreams? They are all still here.

The few people that matter remain. The rest are rotting where they belong. I could smell them before today's big rain.

Why are we okay with ta2 7anak? All these traffic jams to get to someone who's less captivating than our BlackBerries. Our eyes are glazing over, I look around and I see that we are living life through screens and buttons. Been having lots of headaches? Watch out for that antennae sprouting.

As long as I can feel life tremble beneath my finger tips, I can deal with that. I say it's not my disease. I say I've been abroad and have returned with a new pair of oculars. I say I'll make it better. If not for all of you, for the people that chose to remain, or no, who found remaining effortless.

Why are we okay with ta2 7anak? All these drinks is on me and the party's for free for what? And you say you don't like to give money to the poor. Those people are of no value to you either. Ta2 7anak.

If I learned anything in Paris it is that there are too many tourists in this life to give directions to. If I walk fast it is because I have enough to keep me going. I'll slow down when I'm hungry.

Seriously, drop those sand bags. Or pierce them to see if there is anything worth sifting.

Sleepless in Beirut at Pecha Kucha XII

2011-10-29T13:10:00.001+03:00

the in-between: a call to arms

2011-10-13T15:34:00.001+03:00

14:05:45

I'm sleepless in a basement in Paris.

The floor is untreated concrete, the bricks lazily painted white, the structural columns still speak of the wood corset that held them up, the ceiling divided by nine lines that hold the floor above. The basement could be a bunker.

If I were a Lebanese artist in his/her late 30s, I would be thinking of the civil war. I would be thinking of a possible art project where I would film myself in this very bunker talking about my memories of the newspaper headlines, the phone calls, the letters, the sound of gunshots and explosions I heard...

on my television set in Paris or London or New York.

If I were a Lebanese artist making an art piece about the civil war, I would not make it. Friends who have heard screams, seen scattered limbs and trembled with the shaking foundations do not talk about war. It resides in them, it has marked and scarred them, but it is stowed away in a faraway place. If I had seen blood in the streets, I would not want to remember it.

An honest piece is a raw bite taken out of the cold hard truth. Don't remember war from a postcard, don't even think you can imagine the terror, your paintbrush will lose its false bristles the moment you touch upon that blank piece of canvas that is your memory of war.

Do we need a new war to stop talking about the old one?

If you must pay your debts to the war that you fled, confront it, contemplate it and challenge it. And then maybe talk about the contemporary Lebanon that is half empty with witnesses and half full of deserters, and then maybe talk about why we are, who we are and how we are. Propose to us our identity instead of proving that you thought of back home when the sky was red beyond the horizon, show us our image so that we can be better, show us a direction so we know where to move on.

This is a call to arms to those that do not want to talk about war, but want to combat the mountain of residue resting on the shoulders of those who know, and want to construct instead of blow more dust in the wind.

This is a call to armistice.

Now, go make some art.

seventy-six

2011-10-07T12:58:00.000+03:00

17:37:12

I'm sleepless in Paris.

There were no clouds, no grime-coloured pollution. The view from the squat rounded window was stupefyingly beautiful. I could see Mzaar, Laqlouq, then the coloured-in rectangle quilt of the Bekaa, squashed jellyfish villages in a sea of brown earth, rising and rolling, and then the Syrian desert...

My mouth was in a perpetual "wow".

"Is it your first time flying over Lebanon?", boomed the voice from behind.

I turned to see a pair of dark brown eyes.

"No, I'm Lebanese. Bass hala2 tzakaret la aya daraje 7elo hal balad."

In the conversation that followed it became clear that we had more in common than the flight number. His wife was of the same origin as my other half. He showed me a photo of his son: a heartbreaker in the making.

"Fi tlet 7loul: ya btejeh te2e3deh 7addeh, ya ana be23oud 7addik, ya bet oulileh 7el 3annik"

"I'm not moving, my seat is great. You come on over."

He got up and sat down in 32D. I was in F.

He was going on a business trip. I was just in between. I would have rather not gone on this trip and I showed it by travelling with a single carry-on and my casual clothes. It was an obligation. I welcomed this man who would replace the ghost of a TV screen, which I was so looking forward to, on a three hour flight.

When he turned around to order another bottle of red wine, I gave him a once over. He was tall, six foot five or more, in a neat burgundy polo, crisp dark blue jeans, with a decent summer tan. His large nose protruded conspicuously; although it lacked the angled geometry of Adrian Brody's regal proboscis, it added a certain masculine integrity to his face, for his eyes spoke of feline sensuality that could ignite on innuendo. Even his lips, quite unseemly at first sight, would present the first word with a little purse and that expression would linger long after the sentence had drowned in the swarm of the aircraft's engines. Amidst his thick black hair lay elegant sporadic lines of silver. To sum him up: a handsome well-trimmed "plastic surgeon" with the face of a sly cat from a Far East Asian illustration.

When the on-board meal cart arrived, they were all out of fish.

"Don't start on the chicken yet, sometimes, you can manage to squeeze out the last dish, wait for me while I go and ask," he said as he got up.

He was back after a couple of minutes, "I'm sorry, it will have to be chicken."

By the time I was done with my meal, he was ordering a third bottle of wine, not without a teasing glance at my glass of orange juice.

"I prefer good wine," I replied in defence.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Can I take you out to dinner tonight?"

My stomach dropped to the swamp of hard decisions. Murky waters, murky morals.

This wouldn't be the first time I'd go out with a married man, and even though I didn't see it as something ethically criminal on my part, I was now in a very different place than I was back then. After countless one-month wonders, relationships that start intense and wane away, I was growing sceptical about their long-term benefits. The question of that week was: how many stories of "it was great until it wasn't" do I need to finally give up sideline distractions? And Mr.Aisle would definitely fall under that category. He'll be great until he has to return to married life.

On the other hand, I am a firm believer that we live moments of friendship, of love, of passion, as opposed to that false notion of permanent no-matter-what-till-death-us-do-part.

What if Mr.Aisle proves to be great company, an indefatigable source of joy and inspiration, just as Freud in his time was?

"I'll think about it".

seventy-five

2011-10-05T16:33:00.000+03:00

18:18:18

I'm sleepless on Ligne 12.

Crossing Paris from point A to B, to reach an X. I'm calm, yet unsure of his motives. The last time I saw him he was leaving to work, disheveled and in his dorky glasses, and I was leaving to the airport.

I refrained from contacting him while in Beirut, to let him know that I had indeed moved on, and to spitefully put him in the same drawer with all the other Parisian flings.

Ever since I've been back I've been so disinterested by the opposite sex. In one month I had had collected enough to last me all through the summer and more.

I told that to Lucifer. I had to be honest. And it's not only out of empathy, by telling lies to others or by not saying anything at all, you are also lying to yourself. Slowly, the truth you know becomes harder and harder to discern against the background of lies that you have woven for this and that, for him, for her. Being frank also allows you the freedom to concentrate on details that matter rather than the details that serve as decoration.

Lucifer, despite being a "technical" catch was clearly not the guy for me. He has a sadness that is not within my power to dissipate, and I know that somewhere down the line, the smile on his face or the passion in his eyes will prove to have been a temporary reaction.

I exit the underground: I'm in the suburbs but it doesn't look like the other side of the wall, newspapers and news channels built up so many expectations that crossing the peripherique was a near peripeteia. I thought I'd see cows.

"Je suis en route, attends moi à la croissement".

Crisses and crosses, my fingers fiddled with the possibilities that were about to ensue.

I saw him at the red light. I'd finally see the new home I had heard so much about.

We drove through the narrow winding streets. I was disoriented, had no idea where I was, where we were going, when we would arrive. It felt like a long time. My right hand held my left fist, left thumb trying to calm them both down. He noticed it, but I could not help it.

We drove into the garage. A portrait of his brother hung on the wall.

"C'est ton frère?"

"Non, c'est son ami."

The white living room looked out unto the forest.

"Have you seen Twilight? This room reminds me so much of their house!"

"Non, je ne l'ai pas vu, mais tu n'es pas la première de le dire."

I told him about my holidays in Beirut. I gave him the olive oil soap he had asked for. He talked about his next trip, his dislike for London, politics... I was so focused on his fast French that I had no time to form an opinion. Not that I had any. Global politics I could never retain in that little head of mine. I felt ignorant and noted to myself that I should read more news, for dinner conversation's sake.

We needed to get physical. "Tu sais jouer?"

He handed me the racket and the empty white ball. "A toi de servir."

We hit the ball back and forth, the only extra rule was not to interrupt the eye contact between us. It wasn't so hard, although eventually I lost, 13-21, but it helped to sew back the gap of the few weeks between the last time we had been together and now.

He opened up a wine of Alligote. Same as last time, only better. The hour long match had warmed me up, I had my legs up on the L-shaped sofa tucked under me. My elbow was up on the backrest, my head resting, hair falling on shoulder. Comfort, finally.

Comfort, is worth it. There is nothing better in human relationships. I'm done with formalities, done with power struggles, done with labour, done with stiffness. Why seek mediocre company? Why talk about the weather when it can be warm inside?

["Pas de prise de tête", says the girl beside me into the telephone on the adjacent table at the cafe de trottoir]

Exactly. No heads held high, no writhing hands, no tapping fingers, just comfort.

But with Pope, it was always a final destination. A journey to get there was inevitable. The weekend headlines, the weather report, the future forecast. Slowly, our polarities would begin to change so that we could both become one large magnet pointing to the South.

With cooking dinner out of the question, we moved straight for the dessert. Good ole recipe of home-made fondant au chocolat-like skin, natural, familiar, butter-smooth, equator warm, tantalising, mouth-watering...

Simply divine.

Sometimes, it is the best choice to go for your favourite dish on the menu.

"I didn't think a human voice could be so loud," I later told Flutterby during one of our Skype sessions.

the in-between: knee-cap blues

2011-09-23T13:00:00.003+03:00

11:56:33

I'm cold in Paris.

and suddenly a sadness explodes from within

my chest that houses ghosts in a mortuary pit

spitting cold effervescent vapour freezing the tips

of my fingers

plunging me into knee-deep snow

striking hard on my knee-caps

ripping apart the gauze holding my plastered smile

threads blowing in the wind

dendrites feeling for a feeling

to transmit, to electrify, to send a pulse

to my heavy heaving chest

seventy-four

2011-09-16T20:47:00.000+03:00

03:10:09

I’m sleepless in Paris.

I came home to an empty apartment. Nobody was home, but things had moved around since I had left that morning. Crayons were spilled on the floor, and there was a leftover omelette on the counter. Hungry, I stole a bite. On the kitchen table, there were photos left on top of the laptop, pictures of her with the father of her baby. He looked too young for him to do what she expected of him: to assume responsibility and become a true father to their child. A photo of him and the boy at some indoor stadium, a photo of the three of them some street in the States. After a few days of over-hearing her conversations with the girl (who’s room I was now living in) and see her cry last night, I really had no hope for her. She had to forget him.

I placed the photos back as they were. I did not want to be further drawn into her story. I could only care for the little one. He was the best thing she would ever get out of her nightmare of a situation.

I then remembered that I had left my wet clothes to dry in the TV room. Landlord was back in town and I was supposed to be a good tenant.

I knew him from his cups (Prince William and Princess Diana), from his toilet (pages of old 80s ads plastered on the walls), from his living room (giant fish pillow, black and white comic illustration hung above the radiator, Telerama magasines scattered beneath the coffee table), from his spices (dill, thyme, nutmeg), from his closet (tall), from his objects (African statuettes, metal boxes, rusty metal knife), from his books (History of Ancient Greece, travel guides, French exercise books).

His suitcase was near the window, open. The laundry hanger was folded. Shit. I was too late. I wonder what it must feel like to come home and see it occupied by other people’s wet clothes, people you’ve never met.

His suitcase was neatly packed. A polo shirt, trousers… I wondered what he looked like. Was he blond? Dark-haired? There were no photos in the room, just books, CDs and papers. My nostrils flared a little…no smell, no perfume.

I found my underwear hanging in the bathroom, each item, neatly folded over a white metallic rod. I could see his large hands hanging them routinely, as though he was mothering me, “Your delicates go here, on the little one”. He had touched my underwear. He knew me from these tiny blacks and a magenta.

This was getting intimate.

...

2011-09-09T12:09:00.000+03:00

Original painting: John Napper

seventy-three

2011-08-21T18:24:00.002+03:00

19:28:24

I'm sleepless at Gate 72C.

The restaurant I wanted to take Pope to was closing. It was one of those cozy hipster hangouts that transported me straight to Shoreditch, minus the jolly chop chop of British conversations.

He was unfamiliar with the area, which I found quite surprising, since it was one of my favourite neighbourhoods in Paris. We climbed on top of one of the arched-cat bridges to see both sides of the Canal. It was a hot, uncomfortably sticky evening, we were still odd with one another: it had to be a quiet terrace. After a few minutes walk, we spotted a hive of people on the corner of a street and decided to stick with it. Better to stuff our mouths than to continue babbling emptily about what we did that weekend.

It took over a year to get here, but that's how it works. It took us miles and months to walk a few hundred metres in fifteen minutes to sit down and touch knees. It took us space and time. And now it was effortless, like a ball rolling downhill.

But most importantly, it took a few words of honesty.

We bumped into each other the night I met Lucifer. I saw Pope in the crowd, at one point, we were even back to back, but we avoided contact. And then I saw Brooklyn and the friend whose swank party we had debauched and I turned to Laydi and told her I wished I could disappear. I met Brooklyn back in Beirut when he was visiting Pope. I had only met him briefly, both times at the airport, but enough to have given the two room to discuss our relationship, they were close, so close in fact that if you threw them into a closet, they could stay there for days, happy. I always had the feeling that he did not like me...much...and he had somehow helped the disintegration of the relationship.

Our eyes met. Brooklyn's face lit up with suspicious over-enthusiasm.

"Salut! T'es à Paris? Putain, ça fait longtemps!"

Earth, swallow me now. I was certain that small talk would follow and I would not find a graceful distraction to save me in time...

...and then Pope appeared. Brief hello. Insignificant news. Dispenser details. A leaf is falling somewhere, would you look at that.

"C'est quand ton Big Day?"

"Fin de Septembre."

"Oh, je serai sur Paris, je viendrai te féliciter."

"Ah bon. On s'est pas vu pendant toute la durée de ton séjour, et là t'as envie de me voir..."

"Come on, I still care..."

"Même si on n'est pas sur, comme tu m'as dit, same wavelength?"

"C'est vrai qu'on se comprend jamais. Faute de mélange de langues, surtout quand on envoie des textos!"

"Tu veux me dire que pendant tout les trois mois qu'on est sorti ensemble on s'est jamais compris?!"

"Bein, presque. Je me souviens bien des moments où j'étais tellement frustrée car je ne comprennais pas ce que tu me disais par téléphone, ou quand tu ne lisais pas entre les lignes de mes messages..."

And we did not stop talking.

The misunderstanding beneath my house.

"I thought you knew where I lived...and then you told me "je ne suis pas comme ça", I wasn't sure what you meant by that...and all of you were laughing in the street, looking at my messages on your phone..."

"J'avais vraiment envie de te voir, si non, je n'aurais pas t'envoyé un message...on était bourré, on rigolait du fait que j'étais en bas de toi, mon ex..."

The short fling between me and Sobriquet.

"Dites-moi que vous étiez amoureux, mais c'était juste pour baiser quoi. T'as voulu me chercher. C'est mon ami quand même..."

"I didn't think he'd tell you. What an asshole. For what it's worth, I regret it. It was pointless."

The never-calling him back after his friend's party.

"I was embarrassed..."

"Il faut que tu restes un peu en France! T'avais honte? De quoi? Tu n'as pas encore vu comment les gens boivent ici?"

"...and besides, you were being mean to me the whole evening. About my hair, my shoes. You even told me, "Personne ne te regarde". That wasn't really nice."

"Moi je t'ai dis ça? C'était pour te dire que tu peux te détendre, que voilà, sois à l'aise."

The break-up.

"Je n'ai jamais voulu te faire mal"

"Tu te souviens de la dernière fois qu'on s'est vu? On n'avait rien à dire! C'était l'horreur...après les trois mois de tout ce qu'on a eu, de n'avoir rien à dire...ça m'a marqué ce soir là...je ne te trouvais plus le même..."

"C'est toujours délicat ce temps après. Comment réagir? Comment garder des bonnes relations? Je ne voulais pas te faire plus de mal..."

"And from my side, I didn't want you to think that I wasn't over you, but if I was trying to prove it to you, it would look like me trying to prove something that is false, and if I didn't get in touch with you, you would think that I was getting over you...ahhh..."

That we should see each other more often. Hang out. Dance. Talk. Eat.

Our knees were touching. He excused himself. I didn't budge. It's only boney knees, slimy cartilage.

He ordered my wine for me, a glass of Alligote, arranged for a change to a better table once the other couple was ready to leave, called the waiter by his name, joked around, called me Mademoiselle, and halfway through my ratatouille I remembered why I once liked this guy and why I was glad to be able to like him again.

With the elephant out of the room, conversation was flowing, forks in mid air, neatly cut up parcels of food cooling down, plates half finished, wine order, encore, "Jacques, deux verres, s'il te plait", santé, a nod here, a nod there, mirroring, smiling, preening, point of emphasis, a hand, a finger, pokes to emphasise the point of the anecdote on the upper arm, shoulder, slap on the thigh, touching, and coming to realise that we were flirting, measuring the distance, offsetting the limits inch by inch.

"Ils sont là tes amis?"

"Oui, je crois, on a dit vers 23:00...tu veux rester avec nous?"

"Je ne suis pas venu pour les voir."

"Ok, comme tu veux"

One of the guys was already waiting for me, sitting on the bank of the canal, hunched over his sketchbook, headphones blocking out the world, pencil lines deliberate...

We sat down for two beers and a glass of wine, quelque chose un peu plus sucré pour Mademoiselle. We sat at the edge of the row of tables, beneath a street light, they spoke in French, one faster, the other with pronounced last letters, and I listened to the calm patting of peaceful hands building a sand castle for the sake of raising up a white flag high enough to announce a safe place...

The other two were two hours late. Drunk, lost and shirtless, and still eager for adventure seconds. I had to go home, finish packing, and for once, I'd choose the easy way to go home. No walking, no Velib, no running after cabs, no skidding through the tunnels to catch the last fish about to slip through the labyrinth... Paris looks different through the windshield. It shrinks to half its size, especially at night, when you drive beneath the surface of oily tungsten yellow, its clingy film hiding the upper floors from your sight, the unknowns multiply, the streets divide amongst themselves until there are four: the dark, the lit, the full, the empty.

"Regardes, il y a même un espace pour stationner..."

He squeezed his car in front of the large archway that led to my house.

"Bon, I had a wonderful evening, I'm glad we're back to normal, on se vera quand je revienne..."

I kissed his two cheeks.

"Ne m'embrasse pas comme ça..."

"Ciao"

I was tempted to let the night unroll, like a wallpaper of beautiful, golden, intricate motifs repetitive in a continuous crimson sea. But it wouldn't be one of those nights were we'd spend the hours talking until we'd both fall asleep one next to the other, someone's head on someone's lap or shoulder. It would be one of those nights we could possibly regret, one of those decisions we'd wish we didn't take. Were it inevitable, it would have happened, but at this exact moment it felt too...scripted.

Nights like this should come easily.

I kicked off my shoes and the phone buzzed.

"Putain, il y a plein des flics..."

"Alors t'as peur des flics!?"

"Il avait l'air méchant"

"Fais pas un accident"

"Mais bon je suis passé à travers. Moi je suis cool c'est eux les salope"

"Ouais, ouais, t'es toujours...cool. C'est un don ;)"

"Et t'as l'air de l'apprécier de plus en plus"

"Tu n'as pas perdu ton charme. Ca te dérange si je l'apprécie? Je crois pas!"

"Non, continue"

"Il y avait vraiment des flics? Dimanche soir?"

"Oh que oui et plein ils arrêtaient tout le monde"

"Je pensais que t'étais créatif..."

"Si je suis toujours la c'est que je le suis..."

"Là où exactement?"

"Dans ma voiture à t'écrire"

"Mais tu conduis pas, j'espère..."

"Pas devant chez toi, et si je conduis"

"C'est dangereux."

"Je vais te texter après. Me fait pas des bisous comme cela, pour me dire on se voit quand tu rentre..."

"Tu veux dire?"

"C'est cruel"

"Hahaha, me taquine pas, c'est cruel vu que t'es vers Alésia"

"C'est toi qui me taquine. Presque chez moi"

"Ah oui, c'est loin..."

"A 10 min"

"De moi? De toi?"

"De nous"

I made sure he was home and in bed. Only then would the night come easily if he made the effort to go all the way back to see me.

Goodnight Paris, with fire, the works, and all.

seventy-two

2011-08-07T23:42:00.000+03:00

12:09:13

I’m still chained to my bed in Paris.

His “precautionary read” was The Economist. Serious. I was seriously hoping it was going to be a novel, a classic, but perhaps he has already devoured them all.

I arrived five minutes later than 18:20. I got out of the metro, moths in my light stomach. I’m doing this. I’m doing this. I cajoled myself into rounding the corner. I noticed him immediately. He looked like the photo, perhaps slightly better. Definitely older. The moths in my belly batted their wings against the glass globe. I took a deep breath to cool them down.

He was drinking Schweppes. I was reminded of Uma Thurman lusciously mouthing, “I want to have Schweppes with you” and hoped that it wasn’t a discrete message he was sending me.

He didn’t stand up. I sat next to him. At first, it felt like a casual business meeting. His whole look was business. Except for his jeans. They must have been as old as I was. Light blue and soft. A no hit and miss.

He told me his story. He was indeed a Yale alumni, with a degree in literature, who then went on to do something great in one of the world’s largest corporations. Sooner than later, he realized that “great” and “corporation” don’t walk hand in hand. Bad things are planned seated around large tables in the shadow of the public eye, the rumours that we hear are true, he confirmed. He is married, but separated, and a father. His manner of speech was calm and contained, I was almost entranced. Now it was my turn.

My story. My story was not as long or as fascinating, but we discovered that we did indeed have things in common. Not credentials, not experience, but a certain espoir en tête and a certain disenchantment with the way things were currently going. It’s the ability to balance the two, to struggle with the sway between naïve hope and total abandonment that kept us going. At least that, we had in common.

Was I attracted to him? He had nice hands and a soothing voice, but that was as far as I could go. I was more enthralled by his overall character, an acquired calmness. I sat there looking out unto the buildings bathed in orange sunlight, smiling inwardly at the circumstances of this afternoon. Perhaps I’m too easily impressed by titles and such, but I don’t blame myself too much about it. For some, meeting Ke$ha would do it, for others, a war hero. It is the company of great minds (great and mind being relative) that stimulates us to aspire to something, even if that something is a second cup of coffee or Schweppes.

We said goodbye, that we’d keep in touch, that September was just around the corner, that it would not hurt to meet again. It had been a pleasant afternoon, cooler and more contained than the rush through the streets with Lucifer, and I was willing to leave it all to the future, once more.

As he disappeared into the distance, I sat down in the nearby square to let it all sink in. I was early for my next rendez-vous.

“C’est bon, je suis a l’heure, je prendrai le metro. Le resto n’est pas loin de Chez Prune, on peut se rencontrer devant.”

“Ca marche. Je pars de chez moi. Bisous”

I clicked my heels (I didn’t), and descended into the mouth of the metro.

the in-between: mum's the word

2011-08-05T22:10:00.000+03:00

20:47:34

I'm sleepless and numb.

I know there is hope because I looked away from all the violent scenes, even the subtly painful ones. I could not bear to see pain so up close, inches away from me on the screen.

I look at people and I feel nothing. Absent. I look at the one I used to love and I feel loss and lost. Cold.

I kiss. I sleep. I work. I touch. I eat. I pee.

It's all mechanical now. It's all procedure.

My only joy is riding the bike through the streets, I only stop for red lights and only sometimes. Partial freedom. Unearned, but paid for. So I feel free.

I look at people in the metro and I know that we could be okay if we had more space between us. I look at eyes not meeting, hips touching. I put the volume louder and hold my breath. What is this sickness of the people? How much space do I need to look someone in the eye and smile?

I'm far, far away. Nobody calls me. I slow my breath, close my eyes and keep my hiding place secret. I don't want to know that I'm hiding. And hiding what? From whom?

How can you show truth? How can you show a big word with lots of meaning? How can you show an intention, an intention that wavers, that runs ahead, that slips away?

Blank page. Black hole. White blindness.

I don't want to be this way. I don't need to be this way. I could be better. I would be better off on my bicycle going off into the distance forgetting who I ever was and ever wanted to be.

Numb like numb gums, sad like lone cum, dead like chewed gum...

seventy-one

2011-08-01T22:40:00.000+03:00

10:32:15

I’m chained to my bed in Paris.

It’s winter again. I call it winter, they call it fresh air, but I miss the sun already. I shouldn’t complain though, the memory of the smell of sweaty June in the metro still makes me turn my head towards the open window. Better the cool of wine cellar than the oasis illusion of a saj oven.

Sunday. Hot sticky no escape Sunday. My suitcases were packed and I was ready to exit the steamy womb of my soon to be ex-home.

I met Lucifer in front of the fountain. We were going to have some dripping gelato.

Lucifer was a mutual friend. I’d hear of him from hims and hers and just a few days ago, we had finally met.

He was an interesting looking type. Short and skinny, a few couple years my senior, black hair peppered with white, Italian. He had an interesting way of looking at things and of talking. We’d chat, silence would present itself, we’d turn to someone else, he’d reappear, we’d chat again and so on. Never empty words, and I liked that.

As we walked towards the ice-cream shop we’d never find, we talked about everything. I remember my mom would ask me what I talked about with people I’d see.

I’d say “Everything”.

“But specifically?”

“Everything.”

Well, mainly about everything about ourselves. Random things on every subject.

The heat reflecting off the stone walls, the asphalt, the pavement, the metal poles, the people, off each other was becoming unbearable. And with the ice-cream shop nowhere within our sight, Lucifer took us by the leash and to Café George on the roof of Centre Pompidou.

I had never been there for drinks and welcomed the idea of filling a checkbox on the Wallpaper* list (pure speculation here).

He ordered a beer and I had a flashback to some lazy day on the beach back home and ordered some pineapple mix cocktail. We sat there and sweated. The conversation escapes me now, but I was certainly much more absorbed by it than I was with Nice (boy for nice girl).

But then Lucifer, being the Italian devil that he was, touched my nose.

I lost my balance. Was this a date?! Or was this Italian for “You smell nice?”. I’m not trying to compliment Le Grand Nez of the perfume I was wearing that day, but a few minutes later he leaned forwards to smell my neck.

Let me rewind a little. Earlier on, I had commented, innocently, promise, on his perfume. It wasn’t his. It was Botticelli’s. I love that scent and I often find myself singling it out on the street. There is always someone wearing it…

So here I was being touched and smelled. How do I get myself in these situations? I did not have an ounce of hidden intention behind the gelato invitation, I smiled not to flirt but to facilitate social interaction, to show my interest and agreement in what he had to say, to show my pleasure in his company.

I’ve been told I smile too much. Too much. But then they try to correct it by saying it’s a good thing. It’s not a good thing. It gets my nose touched and my neck smelled.

I always arrive at the question: how can a woman be friendly to a man without giving him false signals? I’d sincerely appreciate a clear and direct answer. But I guess there isn’t any.

I didn’t speak Italian, I didn’t touch his nose back. But I might have over-complimented his hair. It really was the coolest hair I had ever seen. Maybe that’s Italian, though probably Mediterranean, for “I’m into you”.

We had lost track of time, I had to go home or else I’d be late to meet with Ambassador.

We decided to see each other on Sunday rather than September. Why wait to find out if we were really centuries apart? Ambassador had called earlier that day to confirm our date at 18:00 at “Les Esplanades”. I knew from the sound of his voice that it was going to be a my-kind-of-a-date.

Hence, I had to rush my time with Lucifer. He insisted on inviting me, I eventually obliged. Having no change didn’t help either.

We took the lift back to the world below. And as we were walking towards the main hall, we got caught up in a crowd, I turned towards him, he looked at me and we kissed. Visitors and parents with kids walked by us while we acted out a scene fit for none other than a commercial for “Find your true love in Paris”. It was so bad a cliché that it was good, as good as a performance piece meters away from the famous piazza that attracts thousands of artists yearly.

But we weren’t artists, we were Ceasars of the moment.

For his size, he was quite strong. He kept on highlighting this strength, perhaps to compensate for his short stature, either by lifting me up in the air or by squeezing all the air out of me. It had its charm.

We walked/ran all the way back to mine, with intermittent pauses to catch our breaths and hydrate one another. By the time we reached, we could smell beyond our perfumes. Pure pheromones and sun juice.

“When do you return?”

“In a couple of weeks.”

“Will I see you again?”

“We’ll keep in touch.”

Even though I had carelessly welcomed this break from lipstinence, I wasn’t sure I would welcome it again. I thought I’d leave it to the future.

We said goodbye and I ran upstairs to freshen up for official date one, unofficial date two.

“Looks like I’ll be a little late, will try and be there 18:20”

“I took along precautionary reading material. Reflex of experience. A.”

seventy

2011-07-26T18:54:00.000+03:00

21:00:05

I'm sleepless in Paris.

One of the main reasons why I was so looking forward to coming to Paris was the facility with which I could leave my past behind. Here, I'd be nobody and anybody.

Wrong.

My past was here and too frequently in my vicinity. I'd often cross paths with The Pope. Now technically that wouldn't have been problematic, but we had had a few misunderstandings, unresolved issues and a slip of tongue in the first weeks of my being here, that by now we avoided each other and we both knew it. It was for our peace of mind.

Wrong.

Those issues needed to be sorted out. I hated feeling negatively towards him and I wanted him to know why I was avoiding him: not because I could not stand the sight of him, but because I thought he couldn't. Besides, if I were to bring up all our issues out of the blue, he would undoubtedly call it my "cinèma".

True story.

Our last and final misunderstanding was the direct result of bad translation and insecurity.

“Tu es chez toi?? Je suis en bas…”

Was this message for me? We hadn’t spoken for a month after the unfortunate night at his friend’s swank house party. I say swank because I had never seen a Parisian home this cool: right on the street in the 1er, ground floor, jazz band playing for the guests and passers-by. It looked more like a cozy bar than a house. I had brought along two friends and we let loose. I recall the punch bowl with forest berries that I kept revisiting, the buonissimo cheese platter I could have called my own, the stumbling, the bumping into people, the spinning room, the iPhone videos of other people, the loud laughter, the obnoxious poses for the camera. Let’s just say it was one of the most fun nights I had had in a long time, minus the social decorum. The next morning, I woke up not with a hangover, but a perpetual blush, a blush you’d wear if you were caught looking through a key-hole.

His message was definitely a surprise.

“Yes, what are you up to?”

“Je bois un verre”

Indeed, when I looked out the window to the street below, there he was with his friends standing outside the bar.

“Je bosse un peu, tu veux passer?”

“Pourquoi pas”

“Dernier etage 829b”

10 minutes later.

“Tu veux que je passes??”

“Si l’absence d’un ascenseur ne vas pas t’etouffer, oui, passes”

“Alors??”

Why was he repeating himself? Something was off…

“Je suis pas comme ca enfin Sleepless…”

Je suis pas comme ca. What? What was that supposed to mean? I am not like that. Like what? Like I don’t go up to my ex-girlfriend’s house?

I was home with a friend, not with rose petals on the bed.

“Enfin, je crois que tu m’as mal compris.”

“Mal compris explique moi.. C est quoi ton adresse etage et code??”

“Ca veut dire quoi “je ne suis pas comme ca”?”

“Allo??”

I started ignoring him. I could hear their laughter echo all along the street. Drunk and on the crawl for tonight’s headline. I’ll pass.

“Ba tu me propose de passer alors je viens…tu veux pas? En plus j ai un cadeau”

A gift? His friend was holding a rose wrapped in plastic. With my sense of humour leeched out of me, I thought it best to continue ignoring him.

“Sleepless tu me laisses, dans mon coin… Tu me donne l etage, le code mais pas le numero…Apres tu fais ton Cinema. Je te propose de te voir. Je ne pense uniquement a coucher avec toi!! Mais si tu veux pas que je passe dit le moi au lieu de me faire attendre. Merci”

Only the next day, did I come to realize that he never actually knew where I lived. He had dropped me home once, at the end of the street and I walked the rest.

“Pope, bonne nuit et bon spectacle a toi et tes amis”

“C’est toi qui as le spectacle vu d’en haut…”

Shit. Did he see me? No, that was impossible. I had to deny it.

“I wish, would’ve been interesting.”

“Ca reste un spectacle, apparament tu interpretes mal…”

“C’etait et ca sera toujours un malentendu entre nous. It’s a pity really that we speak on different wavelengths.”

It went on for a little longer, we were talking in circles.

“On peut oublier cet episode? Sans rancune”

“Je n’ai aucune rancune, mais toi oui pour reagir comme cela…”

He was right, but I couldn’t be wrong.

“Quoi dire, j’adore le cinema…mais franchement, aucune rancune”

“Et bien parfait alors la prochaine fois tu m’invitera chez toi simplement…”

And that was that. We never spoke again. We would avoid looking in each other’s direction. We tried to be friends and failed.

But the more I’d avoid him, the more reason I had to want to leave Paris. It was likely that after that, I’d never see him again.

Wrong.

Whispering Cities

2011-07-23T15:53:00.002+03:00

Waiting for Whispers

sixty-nine

2011-07-20T23:18:00.000+03:00

18:48:23

I'm sleepless above a fantastic landscape of rivers and forests.

The following day I was invited to a friend's dress-up party. Everyone was excited. For one, his last party was mad and memorable and the theme for the up-coming night had everyone talking about their outfits.

Leather. Latex. Heels. Uniforms. Diapers. Whatever tickled your fancy.

I hadn't yet thought of what I'd wear, but I had promised the host that I'd bring along a stranger.

A promise broken is the last one in line of promises made, so a stranger it had to be.

My initial idea was to magically meet someone, in the street or in a cafe, who was the right bit of this and a good amount of that and who happened to be free that night. I abandoned the plan as soon as I realised that I had only four hours to go, more than half of which would be spent preparing and commuting.

So I put up an online ad (the previous day had not sucked out all my hope and trust in the online community).

It went something like this: 50s dahling looking for a smartly dressed gentleman for a trendy soirée, tonight ONLY

Pretentious and obscurely decadent, enough honey to attract a B-rating.

To my surprise, I had a reply within minutes.

He was young, 23, blonde, blue-eyed, motorbike-riding, surf-boarding, engineer who didn't have a white shirt, but gave me the choice between light blue, gray and carbon.

Keep a promise and take a risk? Yes. He will have to do.

We decided to meet a little before the party, incase our photos turned out to be fakes and to see whether the uncomfortable silence that would inevitably poke its nose out would indeed be uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable it was, the ride in the metro from point A to point B. It's odd. One would think Paris to be open-minded and tolerant, but it only took a pair of silk shorts and fake eye-lashes for me to be taken for a hooker. I even got an eye-dart gesture from the North African guy in shi7ata, something I could only manage to translate into "Yalla, next stop?". Not knowing how to translate, "Dude, chill, I'm only going to a party. Why are men such pervs?!" into an ocular movement, I settled for avoiding to look in his direction until I arrived to my stop.

Moto was waiting for me outside the entrance. He looked younger than I'd like, but for what it was worth, he looked smart and decent (if judging a book by its cover was the way to go about life).

But this story is not interesting. It does not end with my hair flying through the streets of Paris. I was home and asleep by three o'clock in the morning.

The narrative picks up the following day. Not outside my door, window or anything, but in my inbox. Late applicants.

There was a 40 year old with a wide-eyed freaky look from my neighbourhood who was up to have "de la fun" with me. A what-looked-like spam message from a balding 48 year old, his portrait framed by pink and red hearts. A picture of a mini baseball bat clad in speedos. Several angles mind you. A Latin-looking-boy swearing he was French, who was fresh out of a relationship and looking for someone.

And a very short but eloquent message from a 52 year old who knew how to dress and loved champagne.

I noticed his e-mail address. Non-French-looking-name@aya.Yale.edu. Ladies and gentlemen, we may have a winner.

As soon as I replied thanking him for his, albeit, late entry, I turned towards my favourite confidant, Google.

If he wasn't Pinnochio, then he was an ambassador of an organisation whose abbreviated name could be recognised as immediately as CNN. Although, embarrassingly, I didn't.

My jaw dropped. Just the other day I had discovered that the men with whom I had had coffee in Rome a couple of years ago were actual princes, two brothers whose lineage could be traced back to the Holy Roman Empire. We met outside the Hiroshige exhibition and they invited me for a quick cup before I took the train back to Milan. The younger, unmarried one, left me his contact details and I have since added him on Facebook. Don't ask me why, but I threw his name into the magic pot of Google only to stumble upon an article where his brother was referred to as Prince S.R.I (Sacro Romano Impero). They were so modest and genuine when we had met that to think they were royalty, was mind-blowing. This is the one thing beyond the Nouveaux Riches' purchasing power. Bless the wealthy who reek not of excess and oversized logos, but of discretion and refinement.

And this is where I would like to bust any rumour that questions the authenticity of my stories. This shit is too insane to be fiction. To make things up, to blow up details would be beneath and beyond the point of me writing.

At first, I was, of course, suspicious of my findings regarding Ambassador. One could have, with some effort, fabricated the e-mail address, stolen his name and consequently reaped the benefits. Even the photo he had later sent me could be found online, along with other similar ones.

But his English was impeccable and his sense of humour tasteful, that was authentic, and I did not doubt it.

I shared with him my anxiety regarding his age. Despite having a renowned weakness for older men, he was ten years older than my "record". I hate to line them all up like that, but one can't help but single out the fantasies that have come true.

"Well, perhaps, it's higher powers (in which I usually do not believe) and we should stick to our age groups. And then again, as you say, life provides for all kinds of friendships and surprises, for curious minds.

If you ever want to go out for a dinner or a drink, I would certainly be the gentleman to invite you, no anxieties required (I would probably be more nervous than you, but perhaps more experienced in concealing...)"

His reply did it for me. It had to be him. Or someone wise enough to have my snout pointing in his direction.

It didn't take much convincing or brooding over; I would regret not meeting him.

"Why not?"

It would have to be Sunday or September, he was a diplomat after all.

sixty-eight

2011-07-17T01:11:00.002+03:00

16:23:34

I'm sleepless at CDG.

It can be argued that no matter how good a movie is, the ending makes it or breaks it.

The time I have thus spent in Paris has been everything, but what I had anticipated. I thought I would arrive, break out of my shell, blossom in a thousand colours, write countless romantic stories, and emerge as a full and complete woman.

Not quite.

As much as I'd like to think of myself otherwise, adapting took some time, not a few days, nor a few weeks, but a couple of months.

Instead of abusing my liberty and anonymity, I shrunk further back as though afraid of what I would discover. Ultimately, I convinced myself that I just wasn't interested to go out of my way, to meet people, to make things happen for me, to find the doors I needed to open.

As for romance...it said peek-a-boo and disappeared in a cloud of indigo.

And then came my final week. Suddenly, I was putting myself in precarious situations just...out...of...plain...curiosity. I wanted to meddle, to rip apart, to tinker with possibilities. As soon as I began to do so, it felt like a rush to the surface, all my frustrations bubbling up alongside me until we all shot through the thin fragile film dividing ocean and air. The blue, blurry environment of lonely whales calling immediately receded into a faraway cove of my mind. Now, there was colour and warm temperature and sticky skin and tension and anticipation, feelings of weight and body, concepts that were not heard of in the universe of slow and buoyant, where collisions seem oiled and apologetic, because with miles of marine blue distance, meetings were avoidable.

My first date was with Nice (boy for nice girl). Yes, an online find. No, I'm not proud of it. In fact, I knew very little about him except for minor details: early 30s, French, decent-looking, his written English was commendable, he had lived in the States for quite some time and when Googled, banking and private investment pages would pop up. Surely, he was not a freak...although after Clooney, I had pretty much sworn off anyone with "private investments" on their CV.

We exchanged several messages and seeing that I was travelling soon, we set up a date not long after. Sunday, 15:00 at Place Saint-Sulpice.

I had not been out on a conventional date for years now. I was nervous and I had to take necessary precautions. I asked Laydi to be my private detective. Not only would she help commemorate such a "milestone", but she would be there in case I needed an emergency exit card. Better safe than sorry.

I arrived there on time. To avoid looking like a nervous first-timer, I sat down at an outside table at the main cafe and ordered a glass of orange juice. And waited.

Fifteen minutes went by and I was still waiting. I had, of course, yielded into looking around for someone who looked like him. I only saw extremes: too good looking to be true, too unattractive to give me enough enthousiasm to look back. I began feeling silly.

"Are you late, hiding or at the wrong address?"

"Sorry...I thought you received my e-mail. I will be late. Should be there in 20 minutes or so."

(Wrong. He was there in double the time.)

"I would advise you to sit at the cafe, drink a glass of Chablis and enjoy the view while you're waiting."

He called a few minutes later.

"I'm so sorry is juss zat I needed to go to a pharmacie and today is so hard to find one, it's Sunday, so I had to go out of my way...I will not be long, 15-20 minutes..."

What could I say. I was there, I had nowhere to rush to, I told him it was fine. I'd wait. In the meantime, I moved into the cafe as suggested, it was middle of June, but as cool and overcast as though it were March, my hands were blue by now. But already, from the sound of his voice, I knew it wasn't going to be referred back to as Saint Dating Day.

"Almost at Concorde, then I need to take the line 12 for 4 stations."

"Don't slip while you run :p"

"I'll do my best :-)...shouldn't be much longer. Thanks for your extreme patience."

I called Laydi.

"Hey, he's running late, where are you?"

"In front of you."

I looked around, no sign of her.

"I'm looking, I'm looking....hold on...what are you wearing?"

"My trench coat and hat. I'm right in front of you, come on."

I stood up, stretched my neck...nothing.

"I think you're in front of the wrong cafe...can you see me?"

"Of course!"

The figure sitting next to the entrance, just outside the floor-length window turned around. It was wearing Lennon sunglasses, a hat and a beige trench coat.

"Damn you're good!!!"

She laughed and then turned back.

"I thought that the last guy to enter was him. I'll keep looking out for him. Good luck!"

He arrived not long after. Just-about-scarily tall, in dress shoes, jeans, striped white shirt and black blazer. He was so clean shaven I thought we'd squeak as we kissed bisou bisou. I knew then and there that this was going to be a not-my-kind-of-date.

He was a nice guy, he hadn't lied, he did everything right, asked the right questions, slipped a "pretty eyes" compliment, told a humorous anecdote or two, cited interesting facts about this and that, had something to say on a variety of subjects, but all this had me on the brink of boredom.

We sat there for an hour or so, I had to discretely look at my watch to believe it. While we ran self-commercials, Laydi managed to steal a few photos of us advertising to one another.

Finally, he suggested we go for a walk. I just wanted to go home, but considered it as my afternoon's worth of exercise. He let me lead and I took the liberty of walking in the direction of my house. As we both blabbed, I wondered whether I was difficult to please or whether attraction was as simple as it used to be when we were short of Sapiens. Had he been someone else, someone more like Jeremy Irons for instance, I would have been hooked to his every word...or would I? Had I finally become picky?! Had these months of single life paid off for my own good? I had always thought they would. With so much time spent away from the distractions of infatuation, I was better aware and perhaps better equipped to single out the people with whom I could really connect.

If it takes effort, it's not worth it. When you know what could be, it's lazy and sad to compromise.

Nice (boy for nice girl) asked whether I'd like to have dinner with him after I returned from vacation. I pondered whether he did so out of courtesy. Surely, he must have been bored by me too. Or maybe it was the pressure of being from a traditional background and going on late thirties. I answered with a vague perhaps. I was certain that the impending summer heat would bring along with it a nicer girl for this perfectly nice boy.

I went up to my home and sighed relief. This dating thing is not for me.

As with most things, I was proven wrong.

sixty-seven

2011-07-12T18:52:00.002+03:00

19:37:51

I’m sleepless at Dubai International Airport.

Expect the unexpected. Days, weeks or months can pass by without nothing worth the time passing, but then suddenly, spectacularly, time stops and one after the other stories and encounters start making appearances.

The last few months in Paris have been life-marking. Paris brought to me what I had not anticipated. I am still digesting what had exactly happened since I had last left Beirut.

I had expected a period of bloom, but instead I had shriveled even deeper into myself (did not think that was possible after years of self-reflection!) and learned that I was really the kind of person I did not want to be: shy, docile, and fearful. It took months to get over the insecurities that had resurfaced all at once.

Hence my silence and my “morbid” rantings and ravings. However, I am glad to say that I had managed to redeem myself in the last week I had spent before my summer vacation. The unexpected happened. In a blink of an eye, I was no longer shy and no longer a prisoner of my fears and paranoias and life happened. Life pranced right in. I have so many stories to share that I do not know where to start. I haven’t even had the time to sit down and breathe, hence the use of waiting time at the airport.

I am drowning in my own…beautiful, spectacular and long-awaited…strange encounters of the sleepless kind.

sixty-six

2011-06-14T07:28:00.002+03:00

05:41:58

I'm sleepless in Paris.

The refrigerator's cry of help, the typewriter rhythm of rain drops on the scales of zinc snaking up and over the roof, the clearing of lightly feathered throats, shy murmurs first, sharp chirps soon to follow, the sudden burst of wings flapping, the gentle snore across the room, the continuous hum of a chimney vent, the masturbatory coo of a lone pigeon, the termites in my stomach, the sound of a heavy car door closing.

A morning is being stitched together and - a celestial drone of an airplane - I feel like I'm the only girl in the world.

I wonder if just below me or across the river, someone else is feeling the exact same way and I wonder if that would be enough. I cannot imagine a one, a singular, a solo, being enough and I don't know how I ever could be in this time of abundance, consumption and careless disposal.

It is a matter of years. I envy those now in their early thirties. Their youth was slower and less confused. I don't even have the patience to listen to an older person speak: too many words over too long a stretch of time. I, who refuse to LOL BTW, have developed a hearing that runs out of battery after a couple of words. Full stop, and I recharge again, but I can only keep running for so long. When you hear too many becau--, bu--, wha--, you know you are interrupting too often and not listening enough. Has that ability been untrained out of me? Or have I just become disinterested beyond repair?

I don't even have the patience for mornings' stretches and yawns.

Power - password - play.

A contemporary veni, vidi, vici.

- The sound of garbage trucks -

Whispering Cities: a dialogue between Paris and Beirut

2011-06-05T14:36:00.001+03:00

First in-situ trial in Paris:

Sleepless in Beirut and أشغال جيونفسية hold hands

2011-05-24T21:51:00.001+03:00

20:30:30

I'm Sleepless in Beirut and in Paris.

I have the pleasure to announce that Sleepless in Beirut and أشغال جيونفسية are collaborating together on a little project, that this time will actually be implemented.

"Whispering Cities: a dialogue between Paris and Beirut."

Keep your eyes on both our spaces for updates - conversation begins somewhere round mid-June.

A very very special thanks to Jad Baaklini for joining me...I promise to hold hands better!

sixty-five

2011-05-23T00:40:00.003+03:00

23:05:59

I'm sleepless in Paris.

I have seen your face a hundred times, underneath the rain, in the dark and from a train, from a boat and from a plane, in my sleep and from behind my window pane.

I have smelled you on my sleeves and in my hair, in a thousand breaths you have exhaled and I've inhaled your every scent with every gasp and every sigh and I've licked your sweat off from my tearing eyes.

I've torn you down and built you up and put a rainbow in the sky, from nowhere to somewhere, and a moon behind the cotton ball boas that you wear on Saturday nights when you click your happy heels from Place Clichy to La Pigalle and lay me down across the Seine so I can come and go and come and come again.

Your face pale in the morning light, fresh and silent, stretching your womb and stomach to make way for rumbling trains and scuttling rats and bursting suitcases
and madmen
and nobodies
and nut-cases.

Your cheeks flushed from the sun or glistening with tears, you joy is endless, your sadness just the same and I wish I could make it all okay for me to leave you, and find you always there, crying and smiling, so we could cry and laugh together in the face of people I will never know, books I will never read, art I will never make...

I want to know you like I want to know myself. In the morning and after midnight, when we are both alone and it's quiet enough to whisper and draw our deepest secrets in the spirals of crottes de chien, in the circles of streetlights, in the squares of victories, in between the lines of rues de la...de la...

In dusty sickness and in blooming health, I do, Paris, I do.

sixty-four

2011-05-16T13:24:00.000+03:00

00:25:33

I’m sleepless in Paris.

Last night – a tragicomedy, a by-product of French vineyards.

An extraordinary transformation took place, eight bottles of wine for each methuselah of truth, unspoken, unadvertised, just out there for everyone to swivel and smell.

Stereotypes were affirmed, hypocrites had their mug shots taken, archenemies were befriended, strangers became soul mates – social labels stood knee high to human complexity, looking up in wonder and fascination at what is at once simple, empirical and sophisticated, obscure.

Behaviour can be most revealing. She laughs after everything she says because she wants you to think that she is funny and easy-going. She laughs because she wants your mirror neurons to laugh with her. And you do. But take a second to think it through and you discover yours was a vocal expression standing in line behind LOL, a giggle in vain, a laughter for the sake of laughing because, well, this situation is quite sad and sadness at cocktail parties is most unseemly.

As she laughs and you laugh, your smiles speak of social conformation, but your eyes speak of different things. You don’t notice this explicitly, but you feel it. You feel discomfort, you feel a lack of connection, and you feel like you would rather talk to someone else, to someone whose eyes smile in sync with his or her lips.

To tell you the truth, I have never heard her laugh, seen her body laugh and when I laugh so hard I need to run to the ladies’ room, I feel her sadness burn my back.

It’s vain to call it jealousy, but I have been her and I know the burn of envy.

She is insecure about her height in a crowd of shoulders to her nose.

I have been insecure about my outdated Mango shirts in the glare of the latest DKNY must-haves. I wish I had recognized that insecurity earlier, early enough to learn to laugh with my body and laugh with one of the sweetest girls I used to know in school.

Our insecurities poison too many relationships to not be talked about.

I wish I could tell Pope that I always thought I was not pretty enough or well-dressed enough or French enough to be comfortable around him and his jet-setter friends. He denies being that shallow, but I only see him in that light, in that spotlight of beauty and glamour of which I will never be a part.

And it has poisoned our relationship; we avoid each other every time we are within view of each other, we don’t even make the effort to say “Hello” anymore.

I don’t want to be that insecure girl and I don’t want to see him in the reflection of shiny surfaces. I don’t want to see him. I choose not to deal with it.

I want to deal with them in secret; I do not want anyone to know: that I struggle, that I am vulnerable, that I am susceptible to countless petty paranoias.

But just in the same way I sit in a corner watching people drink and talk and try to cover up, other people watch me and they know. There is no use in pretending. Most of us have good X-ray vision for discrepancies between what we say and how we say it.

I think we should talk about it, rather than leave it at the mercy of Sauvignon or Pouilly-Fumé.

The highlight of my last night was a conversation that took place up on the roof.

“I like older men.”

“Why?”

“I think I have daddy issues.”

“Tu sais, je l’ai toujours senti.”

“C’est vrai?”

“Oui, parce que, moi aussi, je suis un peu comme toi. Daddy issues. J’étais toujours attiré par des hommes, plus que des femmes, en effet, les personnes qui prennent soin de moi.”

As soon as he said that a flash of “I wish I didn’t” appeared in his eyes. It’s a sensitive subject in the Arab community, I don’t need to stress on that. But I was touched: this wonderful person was opening up to me. He was a little anxious, unsure, but he did it. And I didn’t bite his head off. By the end of the evening…

“Quand est-ce que on va se voir?”

“Quand tu veux. J’ai toujours envie de t’écrire un message, mais j’ai l’impression que t’aura des choses plus interessantes à faire.”

“Je te dis: I really enjoy your company. If you want to do something, you will be a priority.”

If I knew how to do magic tricks, I would have made it rain little hearts.

That was all it took.

The highlights of Paris weren't the parties, the macarons, but the moments when a slightly trembling hand took mine and let it open a secret drawer that was kept in the bedroom when the party was happening downstairs.

Those are the only moments that feel real, that matter.

sixty-three

2011-05-15T01:39:00.001+03:00

00:25:24

I'm sleepless on a Parisian rooftop.

German accent, intellectual talk, sounds Freudian: masturbation, underwear, fucking, drinks, girls.

American trying to speak French, trying to buy his image through his words.

Lebanese friend; I'm saying sorry for being distant, Lebanese girl, name and face in common, makes me ill at ease.

"It's okay, I just go with the flow, you know me, I don't complicate things"

But going back will be hard.

German girl, "If a Turkish guy from a football team hit on you, you'd be like yeah..."

"Shikidim, shikidim"

"He's gay, like openly"

"No, he's married"

Oh my, I hear my Mexican friend downstairs and people singing to Cindy Lauper.

I should go downstairs, flash my underwear to below the ladder...

Mexican guy arrives.

"Awesomness arrived!"

How do these parties work?

I have to go, don't want to be married to my phone.

sixty-two

2011-05-09T23:14:00.002+03:00

20:45:02

I’m sleepless in Paris.

The sky is wearing the same hues and shades it did on that February afternoon when I first landed in Paris. The view out the window is the same and just as beautiful. It has been the same for over a hundred years.

Yet, what was once new is not. At about this time, everyday, I smell peppered steak (fish on weekends) and hear it sizzle in one of the kitchens below me. The Greek concierge, who prefers underwear to trousers, argues with his other Greek friends over dinner – their shadows mingle in the square of red light on the opposite wall. Whistles and screams from along the quai make their occasional visit over the rooftops. Later on, the Algerian woman will connect to Skype and her problems will echo up and down the void that tie the four buildings together. And someone will light up a spliff that will stink up the stairway. The two young men will leave for the evening, their little puppy will cry and I will run to my window to see his cute little puppy eyes and consider, for the Nth time, to put up a sign that says, “I can babysit your dog”.

Homeless David doesn’t scare me anymore; we look at one another knowingly. We know that the morning I stood freezing outside my door while he was lying beside it on a discarded mattress was the beginning of an urban relationship that will one day lead us to a proper conversation. The restaurant in my street, I have walked past so many times, that it is now rude to not say hello when I come and go.

The way I walk past the tourists at my metro station sets me apart and the vending machine is my point de repère to leave the final metro station the fastest way possible.

But I only own this much; the rest of the city reminds me that I am but a stranger and will always be.

Is it possible to belong anywhere in this world?

Belonging has ceased to be a place. Belonging is now a situation. It is a locus, an effective or perceived location.

What are the repercussions?

There aren’t any. It leads us to the here and now. It leads us to temporal contexts, situations of time, relationships of time, people of time, to a loss of responsibility. What was once will not be, no matter how many times you go back.

Look at Beirut, places are literally dying. Look at Paris, places are only shadows of what they used to be. Look at everywhere else – change is faster than change itself.

Forget where you come from, because that village you never lived in, that city you never knew completely, that destination you never visited.

We are a generation of situations. I look at a map and I can tell you where I lived a moment, but to go back there and find that the walls recognize me more than I do them is an emotion to be written about in the pages of history.

But here, I am talking about the city. Mountains will recognize you, trees that have not yet been uprooted will recognize you. But I’m talking about the city.

The city walls no longer speak of us, but Facebook walls do. They speak of people wanting to be known, be it by conforming or standing apart, they speak of people that want to be heard, be it by saying something or liking something else. They speak of want and thirst and hunger. They speak of roots up in the air. They speak of a search for ground, a yearning to belong somewhere, sometime even if for the span of that minute it takes you to look through your notifications.

It feels good to be liked.

It feels good to be written to.

It feels good to provoke reactions.

This is our situation. You only belong for as long as you’re being reacted to.

You belong to parties, to social circles, to trends, to labels, to brands. You belong to reactions. No consequences, no aftermath, no reputation on your heels – is this the final freedom?

It’s temporal freedom, it’s temporary freedom. But I’m talking about my city.

sixty-one

2011-04-26T02:28:00.000+03:00

00:19:49

I’m sleepless in Paris.

When is life too short and when is it time to listen to age-old wisdoms?

Life is too short to be spent day-in and day-out in bed thinking about things you haven’t and things you aren’t.

Life is too short to let your fears eat at your experiences.

Life is too short to shut up when the words are crawling up your throat and tugging on your tongue and prying your lips open.

But if you have nothing to say, stay quiet.

If you have a really bad feeling about it, don’t do it.

If you have nothing and are a nobody, you have nothing to lose: do anything, stay in bed, watch TV, and do nothing.

Or everything.

What is loss? What is bad? What is a do and what is a don’t?

You ask so many questions that you are sitting on your answers.

The answers aren’t even answers, they are “what ifs”. And a “what if” is a question mark weighed down by a cannon ball, a ball that’s stuck in the pocket of your throat, a ball you wish you did not choose to swallow because it was impolite to spit it out.

But that’s a “what if” past-tense.

Mine is still a projection into space and time, a what if I ignore the over and over of “Don’t date your boss” and what if I don’t sit on that question for too long and what if I just proceed to go where my mind is going?

I am Wilde tempted. I am cat-killer-spree curious. I am Nike yearning to be reincarnated into something other than shoes and spandex.

“I know that it could be seen as out of line, but would you like to join me for a drink?”

Or.

“I’m having a house party, I’d love it for you to join us!”

“…Looks like no one showed up, it’s just going to be you and me…”

Or not. I’ll save this cheese for the +Rats.

“There’s this great exhibition, have you seen it?”

Of course not, you don’t live here. You can train of shame it back home too. “What if” is now less of a "WTF-are-you-thinking?"

A little Portuguese accent wouldn’t hurt my ears, a little bit of extra height to a man wouldn’t leave me short, a little laughter and April heat wouldn’t leave us cold, so I say, “Why don’t you just stand up and kiss him already?!”

Because it’s never that simple. There would be a fantastical build up. We would talk about work all night long. And then a Freudian slip of tongue, almost accidental. Or a handshake that doesn’t squeeze the whole palm, but presses on the inner and softly releases with the brush of two fingers. And in my fantasy, it takes just that.

But the handshake comes first, at the beginning of the day, before an afternoon long meeting, where the tables are arranged in a U to facilitate communication and lingering eye contact can confirm that the squeeze and brush weren’t accidental, and the corners of our smiles pull our faces into criminal partnership, Bonnie and Claudio, though our real names contrast, better.

And how am I so confident this would work? Because I am the author of this day-dream?

It’s that simple. You just know. The balloon may be invisible, but it takes up the space of the room and if he comes with the bristle of two days unshaved, I will pop it like a sicle.

sixty

2011-04-19T15:19:00.003+03:00

13:42:55

I’m a mess in Paris.

It has been so for some time now, this feeling of being at a loss, of being unable to, of putting up obstacles as soon as I jump one.

So I ask myself, what is that special place I yearn to be at.

Paris?

London?

Beirut?

I see hoards of tourists everyday take the same picture of Tour Eiffel, of Notre Dame, of statues and monuments that make up Paris. Paris is nothing but a pop-up postcard, a map of relics to an age long past, a large walk through museum with never-changing Parisian stereotypes. Paris is a marker-stick stuck in a river that moves an inch forward and bobs an inch backwards. It gives you the impression of taking you with it, but then pushes you back out.

London. London feels like a large river that carries you along, but doesn’t give you time to grab unto something. It impresses you with its speed and power, but it flows through you nonetheless and when you leave, you don’t retain, only the mud stains of dirty gritty Thames cling to you as reminders of what you did and what you saw and what you didn’t arrive to.

Beirut, a memory of strings undone and their ends shriveling into ends I can’t get hold off. Roots are rotten, friendships dried up, lovers withered – a lost paradise and I, a lost cause.

But that is all a made-up, that is nothing but a fantasy of someone sad. Places aren’t what they are said to be in Lonely Planet, they aren’t what they are marked out to be on a map, they aren’t friends’ stories, they aren’t what you previously experienced, they aren’t street names, nor corners, nor squares, nor houses. None of it matters.

The only place is inside your head and it is the place I think I have to go first, if I ever want to go anywhere.

fifty-nine

2011-03-16T01:22:00.013+02:00

22:53:12

I'm sleepless in Paris.

The smell of something metallic would occasionally waft over from the right. It couldn't be braces. Would he taste of coins if I were to kiss him? His chair kept squeaking and he would sigh once in a while. I had chosen the movie and I was beginning to feel a little guilty.

"Oui, j'ai bien aimé, c'était assez fort comme histoire...les vrais rednecks, une vie dure..."

We walked to the metro station next to my house. Two cheek bounces and he disappeared into the Parisian underground network.

Phone buzzes.

"Je t'aurais bien embrassé, mais le film et toutes ces images s'y prétaient pas trop je crois..."

"Mais il y avait des chatons et des poussins!"

"Tu as dit que tu croyais que les chatons étaient des rats..."

"Pour un murmure je dirai n'importe quoi"

"Murmure"

There is something about the French language that let's slide the cheesiness. Nounours, chou, poussin - I'll sign upon delivery. But you can't put "baby" on my corner, I'll take the long way home, merci.

Yet, I couldn't figure it out. That Friday night out I didn't capture any signs of interest, at least not something that a couple of beers couldn't explain, so I began to spin my own web of ex's and why's.

Sobriquet, he knew Pope well. They were buddies, they walked in front of each other naked, they slept to each other's midnight moans and sighs, they might have even shared more than just circumstances and what if, I was to be a continuity of this brotherly sharing is caring saga?

I always introduce suspicions to my beautiful boys. Skin like wax, planted stubble, a spritz of cool, an I-know-where-I-come-from swagger, opinions to declare and stories to wear, a walking-talking best supporting actor replica and this is where I pause the film to think, "Was I cast for the right role?" because hey, I've got insecurities too and preconceptions about facial symmetry and your The Kooples shirt. Beautiful boys remind me of Calvin Klein campaigns, a lot of promises on a piece of paper and a pair of socks for stuffing.

Am I handsomacist? Perhaps. And I blame the media, in part, just as I blame the media for one-sided preconceptions about race and religion and foreign societies. But if media has the power to turn people against people, it takes the power of medium to turn people into persons
and that medium is conversation.

We spoke and soon enough I picked up on signs of shyness and insecurities not so foreign to my own and I said to myself that posters are permeable and that this boy is beautiful, glossy print or not. That this Beninian knows about my problems too. That this Jew doesn't wish for my death either. That if we speak and listen, we might hear our own echo. That this world isn't ours, but yours is and it's a small plot of land to purge of contempt and prejudice.

So I'll pick up my mop, wipe those suspicions away and take Sobriquet at face value: someone without a hidden agenda, someone who has enough time for me in his agenda to merit enough trust on my part. It's only a little bit of cleaning.

fifty-eight

2011-03-06T13:48:00.000+02:00

11:39:58

I’m slave to the Sunday laze.

Sweet temptations sundae sweet creep up on me with the first entry of a white sun caress on the wall, sliding, stretching.

I remember a night of camping in the forest of summer endings. Two hundred steps from the gentle rustling reeds massaged by the lake’s waters. The sunset, a burst of acrylic saturations, and then the wash of nocturnal indigo slowly sipped by the horizon.

My mom and her friends sat around the fire reminiscing about the long-gone braids and ribbons, pleated skirts and playground rumours. The flames licked their words, and sparks flew up to the sky to join the countless constellations.

They were neighbours growing up, flats 3 and 4. 3 married first and moved closer to the sea. 4 packed her bags and leaped over to the greener side. We stayed with them my fifth summer, and their daughter learned to walk. We’d both turn our heads when they called our names, there was always something yummy in the kitchen.

I remember the army of ants that invaded the guest room, and the colourful quilt that my mom’s friend had knitted, and the mechanical drill I stole from uncle’s toolbox to make a hole in a pebble I had chosen from millions that groaned beneath our sandals as we walked along the shore.

I remember wishing we’d live with them forever. His face was kind and he’d play games with us after coming home from work, and her laugh always seemed to rise from her belly, rosy cheeks and quivers of young mother fat, and the little one a miniature curiosity who followed me around.

They opened a second bottle of wine, laughter became louder all around the campsite, towers of smoke rose above the swaying trees and the young blood gathered near the shore to whisper, first kiss, to warm their hands on bellies.

I kept stealing glances. His eyelids were heavier now, his smile stickier and my affection for him never dead, but in the light of flames and flickers, different.

He wanted to take photos of stars and I knew my way with the pushing of the right buttons.

“It’s easy, come, I’ll show you.”

"Sure."

"But we have to move away from light. Let's go to the shore."

His wife glanced at us getting up, I thought I caught something in her look, but I dismissed it as a shadow of a criminal's guilt.

We walked slowly in the dark, the sand sinking into my shoes, he took my hand to keep me steady and my head, suddenly drained of blood, jumped over boundaries that someone with a broken angry heart drew for us on marble tablets.

We sat down. His arm warm and firm against mine, no silly boyish girth, but biceps that split up fire wood with single strokes, leeched me of everything I ever knew. No knowledge, just focus, intense like a pilot's concentration. Steady now, steady. Take pictures of the stars. The shutter speed set on bulb. My focus set on that piece of skin.

He lit up and gave me to try. I knew we were both there. You know these things. Like infectious vibrations of tuning forks, desire is detectable even in blindness. You can hear the pupils dilate, smell the exhaust of testosterone, feel the rush of blood away from the head. With a focus so intense, you cannot but hear the mechanics of their thoughts.

He put it out in the sand and we lingered there, side by side. I wanted to kiss him so badly, that now it's easy to remember that I did.

But the kiss escaped us.

"We should probably head back."

"Yeah."

He held my hand until we saw the silhouettes of wife and mother we were so close to betray.

fifty-seven

2011-03-06T01:01:00.001+02:00

22:43:48

I’m sleepless in Paris.

Today I came across the term “touch and go woman”. If you search the term online, you will come across a wide range of interpretations, but I’ve come to adopt my own: someone who likes to get a taste of, but never stick around, her departure being vague and non-finite.

If I retrospect, it’s something I’ve been guilty of, but without the burden of guilt. Most of my relationships dwindled; that is to say, their endings never as abrupt as the snipping off of an umbilical cord. And I like that. I like that because I have come to amass an address book of worn down, yet unbroken ties.

There is a place of memory that I like to call The Morgue. It is a basement of past relationships and depending on your own story, it goes down a couple of levels.

A level for your broken or lost family ties.

A level for your handicapped friendships.

A level for your shattered hearts.

The Morgue is not the same as The Cemetery. The Cemetery holds those we will never forgive or those who will never come back to life. The Cemetery is not void of life. You revisit now and again, when something triggers the memory of that person, you pause at their tombstone and then walk away. Some things just cannot be undone.

The Morgue is that in between zone, where we house those we cannot let go of. Cadavers are at our disposal to be revisited, dissected and scrutinized, to be pardoned, to be chilled for a Cryonic Era.

My mnemonic landscape is comprised of a tiny cemetery and a very large morgue. I have troubled letting go.

The skewed confession of a monophobe.

Perhaps confessing to monophobia is taking it a little far, but then again, what are all those blue bodies doing in my closet?

Lulu, Botticelli, Freud, Capitalyst, Leon, The Pope, Imaginary-Extraordinary-Him not even Balding, have been buried. I even see them from time to time, outside The Morgue, where it smells of fresh beginnings. To paint them better, to turn their skin pink.

I saw The Pope the other week. We had drinks in Le Marais. He is the only one that stands out amongst the list. We called it quits back in Beirut, an official break-up.

I was a little shaky about meeting him, but all that got buried beneath the layer of getting lost and walking up and down wrong streets until I finally found number 78.

We sipped on white wine and caught up with each other’s lives, all the while seated, the cold slowly gnawing through the layers of coats and sweaters and T-shirts, until we could sit it through no more. He dropped me home and we promised each other a homely dinner in the weeks to come.

But as one corpse rots, other beings come to life. Out of the blue, or perhaps from underneath a pretext I have yet to trip on, Sobriquet, a friend of The Pope’s who I knew only vaguely, decided to put an end to my social emergency. He has opened the doors to a Paris that I would normally need a couple of months to arrive at.

I consider myself lucky, for Sobriquet has not been the sole hero. Roquette and Bonbonheur have allowed me to play my anonymous little game until the moment we found ourselves face to face. There is nothing more thrilling than meeting a walking definition of stranger, although I must say I did envy their position. I knew enough to know they were not psychopaths, too much information for thrills and chills, while I kept them guessing till the very last minute.

I'd like to not know for a change.

It takes a certain amount of fascination, a certain humbleness in the face of the unknown and a certain amount of trust in goodness and sincerity. If there should ever be a pandemic, it should be of this unbruised mindset.

Volume VII

2011-03-05T03:29:00.001+02:00

Click on the link below to access the recording.

Track 7:

Navigo

fifty-six

2011-03-01T12:50:00.000+02:00

18:22:39

I'm having a strawberry mojito on Rue St.Andre-des-Arts.

So being alone is taking a little effort. I placed myself in the middle of two couples, red tiny circular empty tables on either side. The waiter moves me next to the French speaking couple, just to help me eavesdrop.

The seat is barely an A4 paper in length. "Dix euros Madame svp."

It's Sunday evening, I'll be hearing everyone until I fall asleep, mainly tourists and late-monday-morning French licking their last drop of poison.

Happy hour not so happy, I'd rather be the noisy laughter in the street, an annoyance to the driver, une vedette devant ses phares.

I keep myself busy with the caramel coated peanuts. I did leave home to find a patisserie, but thought I'd exercise my solitude. And to my surprise, it feels out of shape. So much for regaling all about it.

Even the movies I watch are of little help. I find myself walking hand in hand with leading men, chiseled fellows, testosterone Frankensteins, powder room residents. I dreamed of men and all I got was strangers, grandfatherly tufts of silver chicken wires in the après-midi seance. And I know that when you want a hand to hold, you get elbowed. I should want solitude, but it can't be forced, you have to let it creep up on you.

It's always people that make you feel lonely. Reminders of what it felt like. But if people are projections of how you want to be perceived, then why is it so hard to see yourself in their absence?

Perhaps it's not people, perhaps it's more specific, like people you can hear. Try as much as you want but you always end up knowing what each table is talking about. Why are words the hardest to ignore? Is it because you hope they will provide the hook for you to reel them in closer to you? Even if people have been nothing but disappointing, there is always the slim hope of finding better in a new city. And you fall for it every time.

Volume VI

2011-02-27T23:53:00.000+02:00

Click on the link below to access the recording.

Track 6:

Like Three Six

fifty-five

2011-02-26T14:48:00.002+02:00

11:51:59

I’m in Paris.

The city of a monumentally pierced skyline has taken me beneath its broken zinc membrane. Every morning, I wake up as though on a little boat floating on a sea of slopes and bobbing chimneys. Going down unto the street feels very much like a descent into depths, into an other world. These two worlds lie close to one another, like oil over water. The static and silent Paris of roofs and the vibrant and at times aggressive Paris of the streets.

It does not take much to fall in love. In the popular sense, lovers come here to celebrate their love, but I don’t think Paris is the ideal backdrop. I think Paris is the place to discover love.

Love is a word I hate to use. It’s too ambiguous and too liable to personal interpretation. But I think Paris and Love are both supplementary and complimentary to one another, almost interchangeable. They can mean and bring so many different things. Practically indefinable.

Here, I breathe freedom; personal, inner freedom. In spite of having been here many times before, I am free of the previous. It feels a little like the fantasy of being reborn into the world, free of the patterns of the life you lived, but with the memory and awareness that can only be acquired over time. Clean of the nuisances of people, it is a time for me to be alone and to learn why I once was my best friend. That close relationship I had harvested between me, myself and I as a single child has been lost in the multitudes of largely useless social transactions. I say transactions because according to personal observations, the majority of people are ready to settle for less, a residual conversation, a half-conscious thrashing in bed, in order to avoid an awkward silence, a sit-in with no one but themselves. Somehow, we fail to see that this particular silence is rich. It is easy to think that every moment of nothing should be spent fiddling with your Blackberry, your iPad, your mp3 player. We have forgotten that our ancestors used to go to great lengths, climb great mountains, build sacred spaces, to embrace introspection.

Here, I can roam alone without feeling conspicuous, sit in a café and watch people, or write, or read, without feeling like I’m something special – in Beirut, I’ve almost always caught myself with a perverse vanity on my shoulder.

I can explore me. The streets guide me, and all I have to do is walk.

I love, the anonymity. I love, the play of un/familiarity. I love, the technicality of not being a tourist.

Volume V

2011-02-16T12:51:00.000+02:00

Click on the link below to access the recoding.

Track 5:

A Recital Stumbled Upon

Volume IV

2011-02-16T12:48:00.000+02:00

Click on the link below to access the recoding.

Track 4:

You have to Take Off to Land

fifty-four

2011-02-09T23:50:00.001+02:00

01:51:23

I'm sleepless in Beirut.

We woke up to the sound of twittering birds and the hammering of something to be renovated. The sky was finally back in the court of the Ministry of Tourism, but the air still fresh and loyal to the chilly season.

We stayed in bed for a long stretch. My head was still bobbing in a sea of amaretto sours; getting up and starting the day felt like a mission fit for Columbus. I wanted to stagnate, sink into the creases of ruffled bedsheets, unmove forever. That is the nature of mornings - like the discomfort of holding your pee, but opposite, unhysterical, not urgent, but potent and wanting. A case of pillow for a toilet bowl.

Later, finally out of bed and dressed in double layers, first mine that his, I looked out the window and realised that leaving Beirut will not be so easy.

"Never buy a one-way ticket - it's bad luck.", I was once advised.

I'm not susceptible to superstitions, but I do know that life has a funny way of shifting our petty plans for the benefit of a greater scheme, so whether I have a one-way or two-way, is not going to matter.

Looking out unto the building across, sunlight the perfect hue, I ran the scenario of NO-RETURN and caught it just before I could toss it into the nonsense bin. It played to a dramatic soundtrack, percussion exaggerated, mood intense.

"What if?", I had to ask.

Suddenly, Paris became the newborn baby that took mommy away. It shrieked in foreign, face wrinkled like a crumpled tissue, its folds, milky, sticky, sex-shop-signboard red faced, rejecting mother's nipple, crying cold cold rain, diapers stuffed with metro soot.

I had to ask because ever until this moment I was too busy thinking about going, but never about leaving. Never about leaving because I...

...might...

...just...

...reconsider.

I don't reconsider things I'm sure of. Paris was it. Paris is it. It's what I've always wanted. But always is not a word fir for our lifetime and always is somewhere after the end of change and change is the only thing I ever really needed, thus Paris is not it. Nothing will ever be it. Everything lies in transition. The moment when you were half stuck between your mother's legs, somewhere between conception and birth. That is what I'm after: the in-betweens.

But in spite of its static geodisposition, Beirut somehow succeeded in being a time frame rather than a destination. In part because I always felt I'd leave, eventually, or it would collapse under me, or I'd fall in love and replace it. Yet also because the air here is heavy with imminence. We know not when, but we know it could be, might be, should be, anytime, whenever, somehow, sometimes, soon. Beirut never sleeps. She never stops to think and in that lies both her beauty and her own destruction.

Careless scarred stripped wild child running into walls
Crumbling.
Crackling wires on her head, sparks and power cuts for bows, ties,
Ribbons of urine trickle in her bed, no river could wash away
Stains. Bullet holes. P.As of love, telephone numbers off bathroom walls.
Misunderstood misguided mad wild thing stumbling through the door
Intoxicated.
Tight in stockings and market things, sharing her one thing in exchange for
Shimmers and glitters and sky high stilettos. And uh-ohs
Resound in the backs of her minds. And oh-nos escape the nostalgic mouths.
Yes, uh-ohs and oh-ohs as she's fucked day and night.
Loud sweaty smiling wild kinky puss, looking to the ceiling laying on the floor
Lifeless.

Volume III

2011-02-04T14:19:00.001+02:00

Click on the link below to access the recoding.

Track 3:

Windows and Guitar Strings

Volume II

2011-02-02T13:58:00.003+02:00

Click on the link below to access the recording.

Track 2:
Dimlit

Volume I

2011-01-27T23:53:00.002+02:00

You have been reading, but now it's time to listen. Sleepless in Beirut brings to you the sounds of her delectable city.

Click on the link below to access the recording.

Track 1:
Night Expedition

fifty-three

2011-01-26T22:40:00.000+02:00

21:41:45

I'm sleepless in Beirut.

Come fire. Come rain. Come thunder. Come puddles.

The crackle of TVs in a silent street.

The pitter patter on the window like fingers drumming on the door.

The heavy thuds of neighbours shake the walls and floor.

The dripping showerhead on the bathroom tiles, water spreads beyond the cracks.

Days sew themselves together, a patchwork quilt of this and that, and
only the sound of needle poking through the fabric announce a new day
coming.

New ways to amputate time's swifty flight? I don't have any, except
the wait: it weighs you down to sit and watch the floor that's always
still and firm.

See anticipation doesn't do the trick, it moves you. Anticipation.
Even the sound of the word is happening, it's like a gust of wind
dispersing leaves, reeds, hair, whatever.

Waiting. Like a yawn, an early morning pulling you unwilling out of
bed. An ocean of stretch and drag.

Like the "and" between push and pull, I stand victim to them both.
Waiting. Anticipating.

But mainly wanting. Craving for escape and change. The problems here
are not mine. But then again they are, and then again...I cannot
imagine solving them without a gun. Eight and fourteen bullets, fired
in all flying colours. Fire works?

Fireworks.

Wouldn't that be a celebration!

My aim is good, no doubt. I doubt I'd do it though. So I choose to
leave and hope some other coward with a big idea turns brave.

Changes. We all want some big fucking changes.

But we wait, anticipate, the car arrives, 5,000 L.L. tip, the boy
delivers, IKEA opens up and next to it a depot of little exotic men to
do it for us.

Let's pray the airport road is fireproof when the shit hits the fan,
because escape is our number one export and we can't fail to deliver
this time round.

the in-between: minus eleven

2011-01-12T21:45:00.002+02:00

21:36:02

We're sleepless in Beirut.

"We have no more government."

"3adi. Khaberni shi jdid."

"Yiii, shou sar?"

"11 ministers resigned."

"A7san. Shou badna fiyoun. Waja3 ras. Hala2 mninzal Torino nfesh khele2na."

"Ma ili jledi..."

"Yiiii, mama3e musi2a, shoo badi a3moul?!"

"People are going to die."

"Ba3ref. 3am bimzah."

"No way bokra inzal 3ala Beirut. Yiii, kif ma ili jledi hek osas!"

"L timing bit3a2ed, ma32oul ma mne2dir nsefir?"

"Aren't you French? Your bekhra will come to pick you up."

"Shou 7al balad..."

"Batalit balad."

"Fuck this shit."

"Kesssss..."

I.

II.

III.

"When do you want to meet?"

"Friday?"

"I can't Friday. Saturday."

"Tayyeb. Saturday it is."

"Drinks on me."

fifty-two

2011-01-11T18:15:00.001+02:00

16:22:00

I'm sleepless in Beirut.

"One vodka cranberry please," I told the bartender with the long hair.

Those were the days when I could still down up to three glasses of vodka-something and still stand on something-inches heels. Those were the days when I went out every weekend to some dimly lit nook and tolerated the relentless banging on my ear drums. Those were the days when Behind the Green Door was still avant-garde and it was the it and the the and not yet Bee-ainde.

By the third glass, I was that little bit more cooperative and that little bit behind the words that took a walk on the wild side of my mouth. Those words can take you places and that night they did.

Judging from the little peppering of white in his hair and stubble, he was the boy who grew up on shaking foundations and saw the world through quivering window panes. But I failed to see the boy that instant our eyes met, right then I saw an older man, a something I was always tempted to swivel in my glass and I kept him in mind while I scanned the room for something more promising. You see, he happened to be an inch shorter than me and I happened to be that mean roller-coaster attendant who stood outside the gate with a large ruler and wouldn't let you in for a ride.

But by now I was cooperating with the pheromones and the hormones and the moans of a single ready to mingle residing on my wrong shoulder. So I let the eye contact linger for longer, until his eyes were at the level of my nose and we spoke.

About this.

And that.

About me being a kid (Funny men, the elders. Stating the obvious, never failing to caricature, like that gap in Madonna's teeth, 3 inches wider, the gap between our dates of birth, pulled apart further to satisfy unconscious inklings of pedophilia.)

About how tall I was.

Or about how short you are, I thought. Enough restraint in me for this one. Lucky him spared by the grace of tongue muscles.

About how I was cold.

He took my hand with the silly hope of warming up and melting down my defense. They were small, but I cooperated. Not small, just like mine. Bizarre fit, shortcoming.

I didn't mind his hand, our thumbs were playing a blind men's game of head-butt. He sat down next to me, because I had to pretend I was tired to avoid the dance.

He had had his share of alcohol because his face seemed capable of expressions one would normally keep for self-entertainment in front of a bathroom mirror. He tried to be cute and he reminded me of Puss in Boots holding his hat to his chest and looking up at Shrek in that digital animation masterpiece of heart-piercing cuteness. I was serious and he was childish and soon enough he started breaking me up in a thousand little giggles. A rare find this charming little man amongst men so little they can't laugh at themselves between cigar puffs. Comic relief in a place named after exploding sexual tension, perfect fit, forthcoming.

About what we do in life.

About how cool it sounds.

About music.

"Wow, respect.", he said in veneration.

I must be scoring points on his checklist of things-a-girl-ought-to-know.

Allow me to illustrate with this little quote from 500 days of Summer (nice lines, crappy movie):

Just because she likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn't mean she's your soul mate.

But it seems this little truth always slips our mind when we think "Ah, so he/she is one of me! We're so alike." And it's only some dude who died a long time ago, always blue and singing about it. A fluke in logic, deceptive compatibility. You see and hear what you want to. And we both wanted something affirmative, something like a yes for a change, sick of no's splattered all over this city.

No smoking. No parking. No take picture here. No citizenship. No make civil marriage. No you go do it without telling God you want it.

"Yes"

We clambered into his car, Belle and I, and he dropped us off to mine.

"Could I maybe have your number?"

"Yes."

It feels good to accept, to give in, to stop fighting, to nod, to give, to write down a number, to receive a message, to answer a call, to accept a dinner date.

You give to get. Move over fat NO, cooperate a little.

the in-between: Nef3a

2010-12-29T14:44:00.004+02:00

14:42:11

The receptionist’s cubicle is surrounded by men tearing away at their tawouk sandwiches, it’s hard to tell who is in charge, or if there is anyone in charge at all.

I approach the guy who isn’t eating,

“Where do I go to pay the Mecanique?”

“Where’s your car registration paper? The lines go by numbers now. I need to see it to tell you where to go.”

I give him the laminated document.

“Go to the last window on the left. You have all your papers?”

I nodded and climbed the couple of steps towards the entrance.

There were three guys in uniform, not exactly in charge, rather in conversation. There was no hall, just a room with a low ceiling. The paint must have been white some decades ago, but now it was smeared with God-knows-what-people-bring-to-the-Nef3a-for-lunch. There was a bundle of people inside, some waiting in front of windows and the ones behind them hoping to be next. Their clothes looked shabby and worn out and the few dusty bulbs were doing them no favour. The majority were men, and their dark hair and skin only helped to dim the place even further. It felt a little bit like a cave.

The smell of smoke pervaded the air. It was that stench of forgotten ashtrays and unswept floors and cheap tobacco and smoke particles nesting in hair. There was no escaping it, within five minutes, my clothes gave up my perfume and adopted Marlboro in its place.

Behind the windows, I could see the tops of heads of the staff. They were balding men, the rest of their hair graying, and behind them were metal shelves caving in from stacks of folders. The folders were torn and frayed at the edges, factory-coloured blues, greens and pinks that ought to be holding information from the Dark Ages. A donkey or a wooden carriage wouldn’t seem out of place in this world.

“What hole did I fall in?”, I thought.

I went to the far left window and waited. The man behind didn’t pay attention to me, which was weird because I looked like the cleanest face there. I saw that he had a computer, nothing fancy, but a machine that would spare me a place in one of the soft, split-edge faded folders. A cord of smoke was dancing somewhere in front of the screen, his waiting-to-be-seized cigarette, not a burning keyboard. I was wrong. He picked up his pack of Winston’s and lit another one. The cord was still dancing, happy that for the next few minutes they will be two.

He gestured to me to hand him my papers. Shlick, shlack, staple, pa2 pa2,

“Khaliyoun ma3ik.”

He then handed me a square piece of paper.

“3aleyki malyoun w miten w khamsa w tis3een. Dfa3iyoun 3a sandouk w rj3e.”

The numbers weren’t lying: 1,295,000 with my name under.

“Shoo?”

“Manik def3a mecanique. Alfen w tis3. Alfen w 3ashra.”

Ha! He thinks he can trick me because I look like the cleanest thing here! My eyes still large in shock, I go outside. I call Lumiere.

“Is this a logical sum? One million?”

Apparently it was. Apparently I wasn’t smarter than a fifth grader. Fuck my life.

With the fresh wad of liras in my hand, I went back in. In my absence, a line had formed in front of the cashier’s window all across the room and I had to place myself at the end, on the opposite wall. Naturally, people chose to cross to the other side between me and the guy in front, because nobody was going to excuse themselves, or break the line of sweat, smoke and testosterone lining up to leave this place a few hundred thousand liras lighter.

In Dubai, they always let the women skip the line, it’s a given. For a second, I expected someone to spare me the painful wait, to say tfadale and just step behind me. From the moment I had walked in I was expecting a special treatment because I looked like I didn’t belong to this world, but I had forgotten that this was a world I had chosen to ignore and on which I had turned my back. Why should they even notice me? I looked like a thing to push over, a thing to walk on, because I had no idea that this is the world for most people here. A world of waiting, of aggressive gestures, of stench, of faded colours, of lost causes, of lost hopes, of tawouk breakfasts, lunches and dinners, a world of push and shove if you ever want to get anywhere.

And then, not without the residue of vanity, I felt proud to be down here, to not have run away, to do the necessary, to face the ugly…

…but it was a questionable pride. In less than half an hour or so, I was back in my cushioned world of tfadale and tikram 3younik and the prospect of waiting in line was an entire year away.

I really have no idea.

Sleepless in Beirut, televized

2010-12-26T19:44:00.000+02:00

switch the station, change the channel

fifty-one

2010-12-22T21:32:00.004+02:00

20:13:19

I'm tossing and turning in Beirut.

All this scrolling has made me nauseous. I know I shouldn't have.

Oh the shouldn't-haves! The taste of paradox on the tongue of your mind! The sweet temptation slowly reeling you in, the senses wide shut in anticipation of a shouldn't-see, a shouldn't-hear, a shouldn't-speak. And you could've walked away, but you wouldn't. Too close to fight the smell of dead-thing-in-the-corner, too curious to not turn it over, too disappointed to discover it to be just cat. Categorical sinner.

Sin-half-full. Not quite capital, but wrong at the onset and the outcome wronger still.

I knew I shouldn't have the moment I knew.

[phone buzzes. London calling. He should be on his way. Smell of something-in-the-corner.]

I don't know how he does it. How does he cope with living in a museum of my raw and naked past? Perhaps if it were a file cabinet in the basement of a library, the ex-files would not take on a role heavier than baggage but I'm one of those sentimental people who dare not throw anything away. I just throw everything around. My dirty laundry hangs above me like a cartoon cloud, follows me around like a red balloon, escapes through my mouth and lands on the ears of others where it doesn't matter. How does he not want to pop it into silence?

I did it. I could say I stumbled upon, I could say it was coincidental, accidental, never intended for, but I would be lying and I shouldn't. I shouldn't have rummaged trough his file cabinet. I shouldn't have seen that picture. I wouldn't feel nauseous now. I wouldn't feel stupid, because

"Hey, I am not an envious person."

And of the old dusty past too! About two years ago, a hand on the waist, the smile I know, the smell of the neck I can summon at will, the girl he holds and who looks nothing like me and maybe I had a long day, shaky limbs, outdoor shivers, shaky grounds for insecurity?

A cold, glass facade, impermeable to rain and reflecting sunshine 300 days a year, blocking UV, blocking views to the inside, mullions like knives up and down, across, insensitive at best, if not short of a technical term for apathy in modern materials. Ah, but if one could walk through walls and see the condensation on the other side - the winds of irrational jealousy that shake and quiver and make the droplets flow in streams, what a show of all-day-AC-ON problematics one would see!

How does he walk through the glass museum, the curator hiding in between the panes, exhibits of steam and memories in random rooms, open and coming soon, none of them really over, just covered in dust, or with traces of my nostalgic fingers running across?

The case of rummaging through the X-file. A bout of nausea. Never again. A shouldn't-have that should be learned from. Again and again.

fifty

2010-12-20T13:03:00.001+02:00

03:25:26

I'm sleepless in Beirut.

I better watch out, I better not cry, better not pout, I'm telling you why, London is coming to town. They have made a list, they're checking it twice, they already know who's naughty and nice...so try and be good for goodness sake!

Imaginary-Extraordinary-Him and Balding should land in Beirut in the coming days. Or so they said. Or do I say this because I care?

I do remember.

I met Balding at Art Lounge. He was here on vacation. I was ordering drinks. He stood a little behind me to my left. I felt his gaze. He later explained he wasn't looking at me. I turned to ask for a light. He told me he didn't smoke. I used the candle instead. He made fun of my "do you have a light?" line. I retorted that it wasn't a line, I had in fact lost my lighter. He asked me what I did in life. I let that slip and I answered and reciprocated the question. He continued the conversation. I did not have anything better to do. He seemed like a nice guy. I seemed like a nice girl. We spoke until I left. I gave him my number. He said he'd call the next day. I then realized that he hadn't even asked for it. He must have thought I was eager. I thought I had made a terrible mistake. He waved to me as I drove off. I hoped that was the last I'd see of him. Ma2ele jlede. I had Imaginary-Extraordinary-Him and a plan to go to London.

Imaginary-Extraordinary-Him used to sing to me. He would play on his guitar and sing and I would replay the voicemail a hundred times. We would both pour wine simultaneously and our video conversations would become increasingly frivolous as the drops collected in our blood. We would share the sounds of bath water, afternoon jogs and kitchen utensils and we imagined that the other was right there. We knew how we would feel one against the other, how we would fit, because the weight of our words made us corporeal. We would stay up for hours, past bedtime, past logic, past reality, past the present, past the future, absorbed in conversation, absorbed by the pixels sent via cables and satellites until we were close to collapse and sometimes past that. When Skype was beyond reach, we would pour ourselves down letters and text messages, and every moment would be missing something until we had exchanged a message or a comment, till we made poetry bleed from between the lines.

"I'm at Deir el Qamar. There is a girl on stage playing the flute."

"I'm at a really pretentious place called Kensington Roof Gardens."

"So much. So so much. [pretend I am your ground]"

"I don't need to pretend...it's all relative. You're real."

"So are you. I don't even miss you."

"I do [saying the same thing as you in a different way :) ]...

...the next morning...

...I woke up with bits and fragments of yesterday's attempts to read parts of your e-mail. Finding myself often scrambling for an imaginary pen and paper to pin down important thoughts I wanted to share with you before they slip out of my mental cavity or sucked back to some hidden parts of my brain. Your existence seems to be unleashing a dormant creature in me, like a third eye of spirituality, almost like I cannot imagine a world without you because it's so much more awake with you, Sleepless, a new dimension...well, in blunt honesty I'm not sure what it is but hell I can't wait to write you back. I hope it's not just out of curiosity, but even that is fine in our world..."

"To read that and try to reply...I'd only be lying."

"."

To share that and try to unbelieve it, would have been a crime against every fairytale I had ever read before going to bed. I had to believe it. I had to think that I had found that other person who could read my mind, who could navigate it and who could love it, because if I had been cynical, I would have died then and there. All hope of that special something extraordinary would have left me.

But maybe the trick of that extraordinary special something surviving was to abstain from ever touching it. Like a surface of glass, still and impeccable, mirror to the sky, ode to strolling clouds, a plane to a reflection matrix, once touched, even if by a wisp of air escaping the mouth above the water surface, would be perturbed from shore to shore for days, maybe weeks to come. And only when its unfathomable stillness would be restored, only when the earth would appear as though it had never moved, only when the last grain of sand settled at the bottom, only then would it be beautiful again and the eyes that looked upon the lake in awe and fascination would be long gone.

I think we both knew that, but the possibility of us never meeting became a projection of possible anguish and pain. I justified everything with a "What if?"

"What if you're the one? The one I could spend the rest of my life with? Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't it be something to have caught a frivolous thought of you being my man, my forever before ever having touched you and then discovering it to be a prophecy that came true?"

In the end, I just wanted to know. I couldn't weigh the What if? question in my head anymore. It became an obsession and all the signs, the dwindling communication, the change in tone, the broken promises, they never reached me through the fog. I succumbed to a sort of Saramagian blindness - my eyes were licked over with a milky whiteness through which I could never see past, but I always insisted on squinting in the hope that I sooner or later would.

So I bought my ticket to London. Willingly and consciously, the most beautiful thing was tarnished, and I think we both knew that, but the excitement of the trip lied to us. We were deceived by our very own lie.

The truth was ugly. Or it didn't fit. It was two sizes too small. Or was our lie two sizes too big? It doesn't matter. The pantylines were obvious.

It's strange to know that we will be in the same city once again. It's strange to not feel the same excitement that I did last. It's strange to acknowledge that something extraordinary was but a figment of the imaginary. Or was it? Can something be dismissed as a hypochondriac's fancy once you have felt it in your bones? I refuse to think that the line between tangible and intangible is that clear. But the strangest thing is that I have come to terms with the failure. I admit to having knitted a sweater two sizes too big. I admit to having tried to wear it. I admit that the largeness of it did not bother me, but it was the prickly wool that made me take it off and stow it away.

I admit that I sometimes wonder why it plummeted and I admit that I cannot pin down why. I admit that I am curious. I hope it's just that, curiosity, because that is fine in our world.

forty-nine

2010-12-14T14:13:00.002+02:00

14:06:32

I'm sleepy in Beirut.

I read to you poems about little monsters; about little hearts ignored and rejected, about the cruel world that turns its back to anomalies. I read them out loud with a British accent and a Mexican tang gone wrong and you had nightmares about Mexican prisons and I don't know whether that comforts me to know that I can slip in between the pages of dreams that you flip through at night.

Furry from the waist up, I clambered beside you into bed. I don't know how it began, but we sealed ourselves in, me and you against the world, two anomalies that maybe fit. I say maybe, because it's hard to see past your suit of skin that I cannot but liken to glue, an all-purpose adhesive that can stick a glove unto a foot. Our lips separate like two fingers smudged with UHU, stubborn to yield to the fact that they belong to separate bodies. The wish to be one, the wish beyond any physical capability, the wish that would come true in a factory-size blender is becoming a frequent visitor in the back of my mind. If I were a Burton poem, I would blend us two together.

You spoke out against a lot and I thought of running. I know you need to run, but you anticipate walls before the start line. I think those walls you can run through, but you must start running soon. Abstract shit, huh? You light being, so much weighs you down and you never weigh it down on me. What grace you possess! You are graceful without moving, here laying still beside me in bed, talking about everything that should not go wrong for you in this world. I don't know why things should. I don't know why Oyster Boy had to die in the end, I thought he should turn into a merman instead. But does it matter what I think when he ends up as ground aphrodisiac powder anyway? I cannot make your world good, but I think it should be good to you.

I see you now at work, reading what I wrote to you and tears well up in my eyes at the thought of it. If good things don't come your way, then dog exists instead. And I will be heartbroken as one would be in face of a lost cause. Too many lost causes...and I will sound like half a pound of Brie boy, but there is no need to be lost 'cause there is always a route, even in a routine. You can uproot or you can uproot the traffic lights that stall you.

[And I should probably do away with the tone of tha preacher man.]

I guess I just want you to be happy and I admit it is nothing but a selfish wish. You are already a pretty big problem. The kind of problem that stuffs a handbag with rehabilitation program brochures.

Sleepless in Beirut will be televised

2010-12-13T10:53:00.000+02:00

Tune in on the Mazaj show on Future TV this Monday, the 13th of December, at 19h00, to get in between the sheets with Sleepless in Beirut.

forty-eight

2010-12-11T16:31:00.001+02:00

16:25:00

I'm sleeping in in Beirut.

Kinder surprise wrapers, lighters, dying cigarettes, finished drinks,
melting ice cubes, wrist games, electric feel, broken record, toilet
trips, do what you feel now.

Lumiere goes to the bathroom, two steps higher. My boots on the stool,
my left hand across my stomach clutching my right elbow, my left hip
uncomfortable from the unnatural twist in position.

Unnatural situations.

The place is filling up. Someone switched on the AC.

Lumiere writes: it's getting a warm feel of cold

He hands me the phone.

"Write more!", I insist "fesh khil2ak"

"Rawa2"

He doesn't like being told what to do. Natural reactions.

Naturally, I'd push further, but he disappeared to the bathroom. And
when he returned he divorced me from my phone with a kiss. My centre
dropped to the leather seat and rose back up to my throat.

Some guy moves through the crowd and they kiss.

"This is my brother's best friend"

His bent leg weighs down a slight bit. I want to take it further.

The room could be on fire, the red light, the smoke burning my eyes,
the heat of his leg, the lighter being lit, the cilia dying in his
trachea, the cilia choking in mine. Put out the fire with those wet
lips and I'll drop to the floor with those ashes. Easily. False
libations. The wine is swimming in me.

"Do you know what I want to do?"

"Dis-moi."

"I want to kiss you and smell you till the morning"

We were on the same level. I couldn't stop playing with his hair,
sometimes pulling harder out of frustration, but most of the time
dancing around his neck and earlobes.

"I have to go. I can't cancel out on them."

"And what are you going to do after?"

I leaned forwards, stretched my neck up and kissed the labyrinth of his ear.

"La2?"

"Lesh la2? Since when is a kiss a la2?"

"I thought you were trying to smoothen the goodbye."

And then I realized that kisses are probably worse than smiles. A kiss
ridden with guilt and planted in your lover's skin is acidic compared
to a guilt-ridden smile.

"I'll see you at my place?"

"That should be a statement not a question."

"I'll see you at my place."

I swam through the crowd and into the wet street. I walked briskly to
my car and headed towards the suburbs.

Three hours later, I was back. I parked my car close by; my umbrella
and shoes would be useless in the upcoming storm.

I saw a female figure head up the stairs that lead to Lumiere's. She
looked like his friend's girlfriend or just a friend of the
neighbour's.

On the landing, the light from beneath Lumiere's door fell on a human figure.

"Hi!" I said, thinking it was the girl I had met a couple of weeks ago

We knocked on the door simultaneously. Į found that bizarre, shouldn't
she leave the knocking to me since I'm the one who walks around in his
boxers? Her boyfriend must have been inside.

The door opened and I exclaimed, "Ta-daaah!"

But it was only Lumiere. I dropped my things on the sofa and went back
to my car for my forgotten phone.

When I came back she wasn't there.

"Who was that?"

"Where did you find her?"

"I didn't, I just saw her go up the stairs, thought it was..."

"She was in my school, we had a thing. The last time I saw her was
five months ago... She messaged me 15minutes ago asking me where I
was. I didn't reply. Bad timing."

"Perfect timing! She'll get the message. What happened when I left?"

"She asked who you were and I said you were..." he cupped the air to
the left of his chest.

"What did you tell her?"

"Khallas, ma 7a ilik!"

"Tell me, tell me!"

He swiveled round in his chair trying to escape the tight corner.

"Mabadi ilik."

"You told her I was your boob?"

It didn't matter. Those words don't matter. Titles, orders, names will
not add anything. Who needs to know? We know what we live, and it may
be called a boob for all I care.

Silly as it may sound, mystery prevails because.

ten-thousand

2010-12-04T00:01:00.001+02:00

23:32:53

I'm sleepless in Beirut. One, two, three, checking. Tuk, tuk, tuk. Is it on?

Scrreeeeeeech.

Everyone covers their ears.

Sorry.

*whispers to the other* Can I address the audience directly? Isn't that against, like, you know, every law in literature?

*whispers back* Are you Tolstoy? This is a blog. Chill. And after post-modernism, you whatever pretty much do can want...

Clears the dust off the screen and keyboard. Ahem, ahem.

Seeing that today my life took an unexpected turn, I am at a loss, at a crossroads, at the start of ten thousand possibilities. I am at a loss for words. I feel like I'm driving towards a 7ejez, a road block, a writer's block. I've always been driving myself, writing for myself, but 10,000 miles, 10,000 passing views ahead, I can't help, but want to go further and take you along with the journey.

Where would you like me to take you? Somewhere old? Somewhere new? Somewhere borrowed? Somewhere blue?

My indicator is on, blinking...

the in-between: so long December

2010-12-02T00:46:00.000+02:00

12:46:54

I say so long December, 'cause I've reason to believe that this month will go by faster than the last. A new year to come? My new year has already begun, I guess I'm still stuck in the tradition of new beginnings once the official summer months have passed.

But the seasons seem to have forgotten their cue, or that there is a queue at all, that spring is a period of fornication, that summer is a time of sun worship and whoreship, that autumn is a fall in speed and folly, that winter is a weight and wait for summer. The seasons have forgotten us, they have left us with a constant climate, they have left us without hope of change.

Days are flying by and I'd like to ask time for seconds. I want more. Another round please, because this time I'd take it in spoon by spoon, I won't devour every possibility only to get a little taste, but never the full experience. But if the leaves are evergreen, the bananas ever fresh and the skies forever blue, where should I go looking for change? Where do I climb to see the world shift?

And what is world to a little me? Is it the room I'm sitting in? Is it my last phone call? Is it my last love? Is it my dream I'm sitting on?

Hell, don't preach to me about internal change because if all is relative than everything outside my mind is static, even the constant flow of blood through my head is static in its cycle, even the possibility of tomorrow is still because it's always the same 50/50 chance of something or another.

Two more days to go and then I'll know. I'll know if change will shift me across the universe.

forty-seven

2010-11-30T14:46:00.002+02:00

23:42:07

I'm sleepless in Beirut.

Simultaneously, I receive a "BonZour" and "Hey! Ssup bad gul :p"

A collaborative resurrection. A coffin lid that slid an inch and expelled the smell of skeletons and withered, stiff forget-me-nots.

The dead eyeballs roll forward again and looked at me accusingly, why have you forgotten us?

Leon and Hugg, a man and a half, two characters that I let settle to the bottom of my list of people I wanted to be connected to. There was something about them that just didn't fit.That smell of fish in the middle of the Gobi, that empty highway at rush hour, that sound of a stray firework weeks after New Year's - that something that made you turn around and head the other way.

Both were certified. Leon, reliably endorsed by being a friend of a friend of a friend and Hugg, (to be yet) legally declared insane.

I met Leon through work. What was to be a professional meeting for coffee, stretched into a drive to the mall, a shopping spree for a lamp for my home and a dinner by the sea.

His body was a paragraph of triceps, biceps, deltoids, pectorals, abdominals, latissimus dorsi, adductors and laterals written with roaring, ripping rhyme and rhythm and its poetry touched me like only a primal awakening could. He was the physical definition of man. His skin was tanned and rough looking, his cheeks chiseled to perfection, his lips thin and firm, his arms hairy, his face clean-shaven, but at the ready to sprout at any given moment and his nose tip dipped, recalling the shape of a pair of well-loaded Speedos. But his eyes spoke of something opposite. They were almond-shaped, deep wells of dark brown chocolate, laced with lashes that called for a two page spread mascara ad. They softened his menacing jaw-line, they looked at me softly and the twenty years between us evaporated as did the formality that we had swallowed along with our first cup of coffee.

He would always ask about my cat and give her love and affection the few times he had come over. I was soon classified under the feline species, "How are my two cats doing?" he'd message me. He lacked the royal mane of a lion, but he fit right in the serengeti of my imagination. I could picture him lying in a strategic spot, his body pertched up by an elbow resting on the ground and his other arm resting like a stamp of ownership on his bent knee, the horizon stretching out before him in four clean lines over which the satin bed sheets draped and spilled...the fantasies came easy.

It didn't take long to succumb to the primal laws of the savage plains. The fragile ecosystem depended on either one of us to win, to fight it out like only prey and predator could, to have the battle end in shreds and shrieks and a satisfaction of a prehistoric craving. But our roles were interlaced and we spoke in meows and purrs lacerated with what could only be pleasure and we fell back into the fitting curves of our bodies with a heaviness of a blackout.

But that was the only fit. Like two puzzle pieces that come together in perfect contour, but one a piece of sky and the other a piece of ocean. The way he..., the way it..., the way... I could not pin it down, I could not name why I felt uneasy about the two of us, so I blamed his few grammatical mistakes for my sudden aversion...even though I knew he had an iPhone and that his fingers were too large for the tiny keyboard.

Hugg was more didactical. Our relationship grew from him preaching to me his sci-fi dogmas and me listening to them avidly. I was eager to interact on what he called the third level of communication, to discuss abstract concepts and ideas, rather than who ate where and who did what. Cruising round the Corniche, we escaped reality, he encouraged me to dig deeper into my spiritual wells, to let go of social bullshit...

only so we could later show up, hot and gorgeous, at some drunk n' bass party. It didn't fit, even if we left early, even if we knew that we were above all that stuff, even if we dicussed how pointless, how absurd...and then we'd go back again the next weekend.

Our journey started as a platonic friendship. The blindiness of beautiful theory!

"I am looking for a friend. I need a friend right now. I want us to become best friends. I want to share everything with you."

Does everything include kisses and hugs and cuddles and caresses and moans and sighs?

It did. And I could never let go of the initial theory sold to me, because I am that person that gets caught up in details and finds difficulty in letting go of the story even when the book is over. He didn't practice what he preached. He was a walking paradox.

Flutterby messaged me last night: I got a restraining order on my ex-boyfriend - apparently I was a victim of Stockholm Syndrome.

Come to think of it, I think I was too. Hugg was abusive. He'd play me hard: raise me up and then tear me down. It's a cunning game and it works. You are trained to love your abuser. Hugg was a dog person and he wanted me to be his dog or even l'ombre de son chien. Within a month or so, I felt a cloud of bad energy begin to build up. I didn't feel good most of the time and I'd go looking for that better in Hugg. And he played me. The morning I walked out on him when he was still asleep, was the best move I had done for myself. It was checkmate.

But it didn't come with the pride and glory of a strong woman, I have to admit. I called on Botticelli. He had just come back from vacation. I wanted the safety of his arms and the safety of his appartment, far away from this street and this world that I really didn't belong in. I was already parked beneath his window when we spoke on the phone. He didn't know, but the invitation never came. I hung up, swallowed everything and drove off into the rising sun.

So don't supp bad gul me. Because I'll say hey. Because I'm too weak to send you away for good.