Things i did today

• changed my gmail theme from "cherry blossom" to "beach"...(it was just too much pretty and pink)
• organized my firefox bookmarks into helpful categories such as community grant ideas, fashion inspiration and funny relationship advice...also minimized the previously prohibitive amount of scrolling involved
  
• realized that, yes, i can be THAT boring
• examined the anatomical valentine possibilities for the boy's upcoming, likely not-very-romantic card
• realized that i really need to start working again soon

luckily, i have a job offer that i'm really excited about and am piddling around while we sort out visa status and final salary offers. keep your fingers crossed.

Job hunting

Dear President-elect Obama,

Please, please, please hire me to be your speech writing flunky. I'm young, blue, secretly sappy, play well with others and only rarely run with scissors.

Thank you.

Do I sound cynical yet?

If you want a practical education, replete with all the realism and moral compromise that entails, go to a developing country.

I mean it. Go South, young man, and stay awhile.

Be sure to bring a copy of Heart of Darkness with you.

P.S. I suspect that there are rich and varied allusions to be made here...that or a tremendous cultural gaffe. Unfortunately, it's been almost 10 years since A.P. English and a solid five since my Comparative Literature degree. Thus, I am grossly out of touch.
P.P.S. Thus I am also getting old.
P.P.P.S. *shudder*

Sunset at Mar Saba

Stalker-ish or Southern?

Today I debated the relative creepiness of adding random other internationals who seem interesting as my facebook friends. I haven't done it yet, added people with whom I have no real world contact. The trouble is it seems 1 part pathetically friendly and 1 part webstalking...in the absolute best case scenario. I suppose I have to grow a pair and track down the crazy expat parties instead.

Making web friends does seem far easier, though, not to mention incurring far less transportation cost.

Care to weigh in?

The Birmingham series

Some friends here visited the states at Christmastime and visited some of my favorite cities, including the one in which I lived for 4 years. By and large, they were underwhelmed, and my theory is that they simply didn't know where to go.

Thus, I've decided to start posting favorite places on occasion in the hopes the future visitors will heed my excellent advice.

This inaugural set of photos is from The Garage, one of Birmingham's premier bars that was supposedly voted one of the 10 bars worth traveling for by GQ magazine. But who knows, that might just be an urban legend.

Regardless, it's the perfect place to sit and chat with friends; engage in cute, flirty conversation or climb a tree, Zaccheus-style. However you choose to enjoy it, don't you dare miss it should you happen to pass through Birmingham, Alabama.

Life lessons

Of course it was never going to be that simple -- coming home and NOT crying. As Gloria would say, I'm one of those people who "has lots of feelings", and I was never going to be cool enough for a graceful transition into "just friends".

I appreciate that he's trying, but I hate him for making it seem so easy.

He told me before he left the first time that he'd end it if things got too hard. I should have ended it then, as that is clearly the wrong attitude for a successful long-term, not to mention partially long-distance, relationship. Instead, I cried.

In his arms.

I am SUCH A GIRL.

Eid al-Fitr

taken in al-madbasa and in the old city of bethlehem, 2007.

feeling oddly intact

it's strange feeling happy again and thinking about being with other people. i'm starting to back away from all of those inherent questions about relationships and expectations and what you thought you had versus what actually was. at the end of the day, i think we loved each other, but love didn't exactly make us perfect partners. and whether it's a matter of timing or of me just not being that extra special person, i can't know.

as the great justin bobby is wont to say, "truth and time tells all."

but in the meantime, i'm not really a masochist. not even in the service of love. i want to be happy, and that may mean being happy alone or happy with someone else. either way works for me.

say it with me, for justin bobby...

what i've gotten used to, is that, for the foreseeable future, i won't be happy with him.

and that's surprisingly okay.

The caffeine hangover

Lately I've given up coffee in favor of a rapidly-expanding addiction to energy drinks. My current favorite is Power Mix, a Saudi-produced mix of effervescent goodness sold in a subtly-designed black can. Its light taste and herbal infusions make it seem good for me. I mean, ginseng! It's herbal. It's healthy. It's TOTALLY mitigating the fact that I can't stay away from my crack in a can.

Yesterday, I had the brilliant idea to mix my energy drink with soda water. Think about it: all that flavor with more effervescence. (And yes, I DO love the word "effervescence".) So I poured 1 part energy drink into a cup and mixed it with 1.5 parts soda. Then I realized why they sell that stuff in opaque cans: it looks like a fizzy urine sample. And yet, I kept drinking it.

Unfortunately, I had also eaten enough hummus and falafel for breakfast to feed the entire staff, so in my stomach there was now falafel and fizz. The fizz, oh my God the FIZZ.

This morning my stomach feels like my 5th grade science project, the one where you build a volcano replica, fill it with baking soda, top it with vinegar and stand back to watch the flowing chemical reaction. With nowhere to explode just yet, my volcano of a stomach is inflating faster than Nicole Ritchie.

The experience is, suffice it to say, MOST uncomfortable. In fact I might have stayed home on such an occasion, but that's not so feasible when you have stomach problems of the chronic variety. If I stayed home every time my stomach hurt, I'd have to put "couch potato" on my resume.

Speaking of menstruation...

When I got back to the land of milk and honey and falafel, I realized what I'd left at home. Cotton balls. Not a big deal. Certainly they're available here.

But buying more required a trip to the store, and we all know how I love to procrastinate.

Faced with the prospect of stubborn yet chipped nail polish and no cotton, I searched for something else that would be durable and absorbent. What, I thought, would a self-respecting girl scout do in this situation?

Adult diapers.

Cut into strips, I used them for two days. Everything from nail polish remover to clinique clarifying lotion went on those strips. And it totally worked.

The adhesive backing was slightly problematic, but you should definitely try them in a pinch. Unless you're not the menstruating type. In which case, I suppose you're just SOL.

Tampons would, of course, be more logical, but I can't bear to reenact those commercials that demonstrate leakage-stopping lateral expansion.

Sleepy(less)ness and spots

On this trip I realized something very important about the way my body responds to world travel--my jet lag happens in the manner of a time-release tablet. Initially, I can't feel anything other than, of course, the residual stress from airport "security". Or, as I like to call it, "harassment". Then I keep going along, feeling a bit sleepy but fine, provided I incorporate a nap on day 2. By day 3, the tablet has fully released, and the coma kicks in.

Suddenly, I'm hit by the combined forces of narcolepsy and gravity, and my head WILL NOT come off the desk.

Unfortunately, it WILL come off the pillow every hour, on the hour, while I'm trying to sleep at night.

To make matters worse, the combination of 12-hour flights and menstruation means teenage-style spots. Let's just say I'm trying to avoid all mirrors.

Fringe benefits

My single favorite thing about the office is the boss-man's habit of bringing in food. Sometimes it's simple fare: pita bread with tangy yogurt, for instance, or pita with various salads. Other days it's much more impressive.

Today was one of those days, with a big pot full of khitha (sp?) spread out among two huge platters and accompanied by a dozen bowls of yogurt (laban). We divided ourselves into groups around the platters and ate hard-core family style--spoons and fingers digging into the shared platters, no bothering with personal plates.

It sounds slightly disgusting by American standards, but it's actually quite lovely. In fact, it rather reminds me of communion.

Or it did...until I sneezed, and my snot was the color of khitha.

Hazardous duty

I have quickly become the office klutz. It started with a bang when I managed to knock over my chair...while I was in it. In fact, I fell forehead-first into the desk on my way down. I was sure I'd have a black eye by the next morning and was oddly disappointed when I didn't.

Today I spilled coffee all over my pants because I forgot that one shouldn't talk with one's hands while one is holding a hot beverage. I'd like to think I've learned important safety lessons from these events, but I suspect not.

Thank goodness for traveler's health insurance.

Is clumsiness classified as a preexisting condition?

Trip to Jericho: superphrique

Trip to Jericho: sea level

Girl, you'll be a woman soon...

One of my friends observed that all the ads on Israeli television are about one of two things: 1) something I can't remember (because it was neither important nor interesting), and 2) adult diapers.

"Adult diapers?" I questioned. "Is the Israeli population that overwhelmingly old?"

"Not old," he replied, "just female."

"Excuse me?!!!"

"Yeah, you know, every month the women need the diapers."

"EXCUSE ME?!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"......"

"Those aren't DIAPERS. DIAPERS are for people who are too young or too old to wait until they can make it to a toilet. Women who need monthly absorption usually don't fall into either of these categories."

Then we both laughed, and I taught him all of the funny English euphamisms for the things that soak up the ... stuff. Feminine hygiene products. Sanitary napkins. Because the process wasn't already strange and scary enough.

Several days later I was at another friend's house. This friend has a daughter who's on the cusp of toilet training but who would still rather remain squinting in a demi-squat while she uses her diaper than ask for a potty. The good news is that girl can just about diaper herself.

As I witnessed her standing there, arranging the diaper between her legs, I thought, "Wow, She's just about ready to be a woman."

Happy birthday to me!

Taurus Horoscope for week of May 17, 2007

It's about time you got the chance to be knocked on your ass by a flood of positive surprises and good feelings. I hope you're trusting enough to go with the tidal flow, even if it does temporarily render you a bit woozy. Naturally you'd like to know if this giddy surrender will land you in trouble. Is there any chance that you'll have to endure some karmic adjustment at a later date because of the fun you're having now? Here's my prediction: absolutely not. If anything, your enthusiastic cooperation with the free-form dazzle will shield you from any negative repercussions.

I am so, so willing to go with the tidal flow of good feelings. Bring it!

Eggs and escapism

I was reading this website and thinking, wow, if I could be a mom like that, a mom who's the epitome of cool, I would totally commence reproducing RIGHT NOW!

Don't worry mom. I don't think I'd be cool enough to warrant immediate donor solicitation. In fact, I even realize that I should be worrying about paying jobs before I worry about procreation. Rest assured, I do worry about paying jobs...unfortunately, that doesn't make them magically appear. Go figure.

Today was boring and tiring and demoralizing. Not necessarily in that order. I need to be better at writing diplomatic yet manipulative emails (though, come to think of it, mightn't those be synonyms?). Adopting this stylistic approach would make my life exponentially easier and probably no more unhappy.

On the upside, I hear that my grandmother not only survived the process of getting her new knee, but that she should be showing it off to the rest of the hospital ward very, very soon. I'm proud to come from such sturdy, kickass stock.

Albert Brooks was totally right!

The thing I hate about blogging is that I always think of witty lines while I'm going about my daily routine. While I'm brushing my teeth, for example, I'll be composing lines about my newfound love of C.S. Lewis (and how much this newfoundness confirms my suspicions of being a late bloomer). Clever things that are long lost by the time I actually put fingers to keyboard. In other words, blogging gives me a neat, well-edited medium for self-reflection, but it remains largely internal. So what's a self-respecting gal-blogger to do?

Why, sit and drink wine and listen to the bar's cheesy latin music until my reflections on recent events evolve into something resembling a post. Also, googleanalytics informs me that my readership has declined in recent days, and with good reason, I imagine, since there's been nothing new. Here goes.

There's something decidedly fabulous about Palestinian women. Even when I feel very pulled-together in a relaxed, comfortable, self-confidence-is-sexier-than-any-clothing kind of way, I absolutely cannot compete. They wear things that would seem absolutely ridiculous on me but that just work on them. Things like faux-fur belts with semi-matching faux-fur-and-bronze beaded necklaces. Things like tiny diamond studs affixed to an incisor (think lady-like, old riche version of a grille). Things like dark stovepipe jeans and high heels whose toe points resemble a pregnant pause. In short, exaggerated versions of trends that most women I know have long since given up as completely uncomfortable and unworkable. But these women chase after their kids in them (and they can still wear these things after having kids!). And, like Korean women, Palestinian women of a certain age simply don't do gray.

In short, they're far, far better women than I am...or could ever hope to be.

Then again, I'm wearing my knockoff vamp nail polish, and that's a sexy that works for me.


***wondering about the title. click here. ***