When it counts

Last day of the year.

Here we go again, huh? New resolutions that never make it past the end of January, plans and projects we make because we don't want to waste the next 365 days, we don't want to look back and realize nothing changes year after year, and year after year it gets scarier because we're getting older and the years seem to be going by faster.

I know that feeling because I've felt it almost every New Year's for the last decade. But not this year. It's funny how we only seem to get perspective at the end of the year and get lost in our routine again within weeks. Yeah, we quit smoking and join the gym and we really think this time it's going to stick but it doesn't. I think it's because we make the wrong choices. We can't fix our lives by quitting smoking but we might be able to quit smoking if we fix our lives first. Last year I quit smoking for about a week. I think I also wanted to buy a bike and start cycling but somehow never got around to it. But I also said I wanted to "Find myself" --whatever that means. And in the last few months I have written numerous times about how my life was turned upside down just by "doing" things, every day, in stead of just talking about them. And I'm not the only one. I look at friends and see what they've accomplished this year, and I'm proud of them too. Friends who quit their perfectly comfortable well paid jobs to follow their dreams. Putting two season of a TV show on air within 6 months. Opening a bar. Publishing a book. Moving accross the world to start a new life. I see others around me, taking chances every day to do something different with their lives and it's inspiring. Even when it's just something like starting a blog like my friends Blushing and The Football Supernova. Sometimes small is big. Huge even.

I have had the most satsifying year of my life and it just makes me want to do more. It's not about quitting smoking, although we should... It's the feeling of doing something every day that you can be proud of. I'm proud of so many things right now I would sound very pretentious if I were to list them all! But I have never felt better. Right this moment, I'm sitting in my hotel room in Phuket, Thailand, and I can barely believe I am here. In the last few days I have seen more beauty than I have in a lifetime. Everything here reminds me of everything I have learnt this year, and how much more I want to learn. Recently I was once again painfully reminded at how short life is and how easily we can all slip out of this world. So I'm damn well going to make my time count.

I look at the breathtaking views of the beaches of Thailand and I take it all in. And then I snap a picture because that's the only thing we can keep, right? You're there one moment and then you're not. So I snap away at the beach and the sunset and my friends on motorcycles around Phuket. Weekends of shoots, we snap. Gala dinner raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for children, we snap. My cousin who was completely paralyzed from neck to toe last year, dancing the foxtrot like a beaty queen -we snap. My aunt's last birthday with her husband. My brother turning 18. Snap, snap, snap. The year went by so fast we barely had time to blink. Yet so much has changed we don't live in the same world anymore. The world I'm in right now has blue skies and turquoise water and most of my closest friends. I can't think of a better way to wrap up this year and start the new.

Make it count.

it's a wrap!

I can't believe it's that time of the year again.

The lights are shining on every street in the country --it's not just green and red anymore, now it's purple, blue, yellow and pink. The songs are overtaking every FM station I have a hard time listening to on a normal day. We did the tree at home like we do every year, my sister, my brother and me, with the cheesiest Christmas Carols in the background because it's our tradition and it reminds me that even though the years go by, we always find ourselves once a year to do this together. Christmas had different meanings for me in the course of my relatively short life and I am surprised to discover a whole new feeling this year.

When I was a child Christmas was about presents and Santa. For the last ten Christmases, it's been about missing loved ones. But suddenly I feel like I might have grasped a new meaning to what this holiday is about, at least for me.

I feel profoundly lucky. I was just thinking that on Sunday, driving down from Bikfaya where I had a 48hour shoot this weekend. We barely got any sleep, were up on our feet in the freezing cold since 5.30AM and were shooting all day with our heels digging in the mud and our fingers turning blue. Yet this weekend was magical. The energy of people coming together to create something fun, even if it's hard work, and to smile and laugh and freeze while doing it made me realize that the single goal I had set for myself this year, I've actually reached: I found passion.

I smiled as I had that thought, driving down in the fog without my eyeglasses and with smudges on my windshield, feeling completely blinded. I smiled because I realized I am not waiting for anything to happen to me anymore: it's around me, all the time, and I feel it. I wake up in the morning and I can't wait to get started with my day because I have so many things that I want to do and people that I want to see and I know that I am lucky to feel that way. It didn't used to be like that. It used to be: I believe that I will do something fulfilling one day, and in the mean time I was filling the gaps. Now the days and the weeks and the months are all converging in one giant bubble of time. I don't stop and do nothing anymore, and when I do, I actually appreciate every second of nothingness, making it a special activity in and of itself.  I've learned how to appreciate time.

When I was younger, 10 or 11, I didn't really have friends to hang out with in school. I was bit shy, I didn't know how to impose myself, so I would hide out in the school library during recess, always finding comfort in my books. Then things changed, and I met the group of people I have been friends with ever since. I've always felt lucky to have them, and I thought I didn't really need other friends. I never really made an effort being social --who needs a million acquaintances anyway? Turns out I was wrong to be so closed-up to people for so many years. This year, I met new people every week, made a dozen of new friends, each of them unique in his own way and all of them important. And I've learned that everyone I meet can bring something good to my life.

And as family goes, I've never felt closer to them. It's true, we've had another loss this year, this month actually. But Saturday morning, as my aunt enters her third week as a widow, she will still get up and make "Shorbet el Eid," stuff the turkey and set-up the table. The Christmas tree will still be lit and the presents will still come, and the magic of Christmas will have to find us despite the sadness. This is what this holiday is about for me now: last year, I had a thought for all those who passed. All those who are gone and are around us in the form of memories and pictures --and I can't believe that another face is now behind a glass frame. But this year, I'm having a thought for the living. Spending our energy on ourselves and on our loved ones who are right here in front of us, because that is the way to go on, stay strong, and make those above us proud.

So here's a Xmas thought, for the living: Go do a random act of kindness. Be spontaneous, do something big, something small, to someone you know or a perfect stranger.

Beirut RATsodies: Raw Emotion

It's been a while since we've had the perspective of a guy around here. Someone who actually volunteered, without me having to beg him to write a few wise words for this blog. And I'm glad he did this because it's something I have to admit I never thought about. Girls complaining about the lack of men in Beirut is the ultimate topic of conversation we've all overdosed on. Yet here's something to feed your thoughts on --or are we too good to let go and use raw emotion? I like the way you think SmartRat*. 
[The Four Rats take offense when I label someone a Rat when he isn't one of the core. For the purpose of this blog, they're gonna have to oversee this offense and readers, please make note that this is not the work of one of the core Rats. Thank you.]

Beirut RATSodies: Raw Emotion

The other night I was getting drunk with two friends. As usual, they were complaining about the scarcity of men in this town. Trying to stay a little chirpy and up their morale, I tried to convince them that there must be hope. I looked around the bar and pointed at a few guys. After this little exercise failed, I quickly noticed the girl’s range of guys to look at was substantially smaller than the males is saw. They literally scanned the whole place in 1.4 seconds, when it took me a good minute to figure out whether one of those guys had potential. First I thought it must be a girl thing (they know what they want, what they look for etc…) but then I quickly realized that they had actually left out the guys working in the bar, which constituted about 40% of the males present. So here’s one of my biggest concern with the girls in Lebanon: They calculate. A lot. There's no room for raw emotion. To them, a guy working in a bar would NEVER make the cut, so there’s no point in even going there. 

I know were in a more traditional part of the world, and it is important not to bring home a bum who’s life plans are to live under a bridge. But at that moment in the bar, I was looking at a bunch of hardworking guys, that might or might not have quite interesting characters, with no chance in hell of ever dating one of my friends. It struck me as sad. Not in the “oh the world is such a sad place where a working guy cant get an upper class girl.” It was sad in a way that was more like an obstruction to the natural attraction process. 

Here’s what I mean. In western society, the image of the good-looking barman, construction worker, truck driver or what not has quite a different lure to women than it does here. Over there a guy like that can be attractive to women. Over here, he’s just: quote “niakkk!”. Now I know this probably has some socio-economic reasons in this part of the world, and that not all the girls here are like that, that it really depends on the situation etc etc. But bottom line is the chance of the average girl getting with a bartender here is probably 87 times lower than anywhere else. That sucks, especially for the bartenders. 

What this creates, I think, is this: the driving force behind a girl engaging in such a way abroad is raw sexual attraction. I think its very healthy. You find much less of that here. Our girls have been so brainwashed with the image of an ideal guy that will make their family, friends and finally them happy, that expectations are really too high and more importantly they are really anticipated. No chance is given to anything that doesn’t match the standards. Most physical encounters are calculated and little is left to a surrender of the flesh. I'm not saying the girls should all start acting like hoes and jump on whatever’s in front of them. But a little more ease in this domain would be appropriate. And the little ease that’s out there shouldn’t all be directed at the “perfect match” guys. 

By the way, I can vow for that. Many girls perceive me as coming from a wealthy background. And its gotten me much further in this city than it has in any other.

Of course its better if you end up dating a presentable guy from down the block whose family kind of looks like yours so that everyone gets along and your social status is maintained or improved. But this shouldn’t and can’t be the decisive factor if your looking for something real. Because odds are, that prince charming is not going to come to you on a silver platter. I do think he might come to some on a cheaper platter and some girls will be lucky to get the silver ones. But they cant ALL be silver.

I think western cultures are much healthier than we are in that way. Couples have more reasonable relationships based on real attraction there. Here, I feel a lot of girls mainly go for the guy that makes everybody else happy. And god forbid he s a foreigner!

Whats up with that? Lebanese girls never giving a foreign guy a chance? Every time my foreign friends (descent guys that are usually quite successful with girls) come to town they complain about how girls are so unapproachable or after a one night stand the girls act like they’ve never met the guy. I'm sure my friends are fine with that, but something’s messed up here no?

there's no merit in loving if everything is easy

Some people say my family is cursed. They say we're "like the Keneddy's." That the series of tragedies never end. I guess I can see where they're coming from...  Two cancers, a rare illness called "Harada", a spinal cord injury, a heart attack, five deaths. And every time, we think that's it, this has got to be the last one, we can't possibly deal with any more. But apparently we can.

And so it has crossed my mind at some point too, that our family is indeed, peculiarly unlucky. Actually we were laughing about that on Friday night, the day my aunt buried her husband, and my cousins buried their father. 22 years before, on the very same day, my aunt walked down the aisle in a church in Paris and married the love of her life. This week, in stead of celebrating a love that was still very much alive, she wore a black dress and walked behind his casket in a cemetery.

That night, as we were gathered around her fireplace,surrounded by the pictures of all those we've lost, we all laughed. It might seem odd to still be laughing, on a day where you just buried someone you adored, but there is something about our family that goes beyond the pain we feel again and again. The entire time of the condoleances, my cousin was wearing a little paper boat clipped on her dress. "This one day, my father was crying," she said. "I didn't know what to do or how to stop his pain, so I clipped on this little paper boat on his shirt, and it made him laugh." We need the silly little things to make us smile, even in the worst of times.



What people don't know about our family is that we're actually one of the luckiest. The love that bonds us all so closely together only grows every time another tragedy hits. No one is left alone, not for a second. The other day, I was looking at my father's and my uncle's girlfriends, and I told them "What are you still doing here?" And my aunt joked: "Run! Run for your life!" Run for your life quite literately. But deep down we all know why they haven't run yet.




There is no merit in loving someone when everything is easy. When they are always perfect, and healthy, and kind, and full of qualities. Anyone can love if that's that. But when you go through the flaws, and the years and the pain, when you've seen the ugly, the poor, the sick... that's when you know you love someone all the way. My aunt said even if she knew she would lose her husband 22 years after she got married, she wouldn't have missed a minute of it, she wouldn't have exchanged him for anything. My father said the same thing about my mother. Even I look back and say that although the days when my ex-boyfriend was sick were the hardest, they were the days I loved him the most, and I can still admit that now.


This post is a tribute to Joe.

It's hard to put words together and do him justice, it's hard to write anything at all because none of us want to accept that he's gone. But there's no merit in loving someone if everything is easy.

the audacity of flirting

There's a game and we all know it. Some people claim they hate the game, don't play by the rules and don't respect the code but in the end, there is always some kind of conscious effort made to make sure you get what you want. It's like a chess game, when you think about it. You can have the first move but that doesn't necessarily mean that you will get the last. And along the way, every decision you make will count.


And so it goes with games of the heart. In the traditional sense of the game, men have the first move. But sometimes girls get bold. They see a guy they like and actually approach him. I've asked some guys about this and apparently they like it, as long as it balances out afterwards. I was having this conversation with two people I met last night, and the guy said "The girl can do the first move, and we like it, but after that it has to be our game." He told me the story of how he once got sent a drink over at a bar, from some girl in the back. Gorgeous girl, it turns out. And he liked the move, it came a surprise and it felt bold and confident. He sent over a drink too, then went to speak to her and had a nice chat. At the end of the night, when he asked for her number, she said no. When he saw her again, she gave him her number this time, but when he asked her out, she said no, twice. Somewhere along the way, there was a tipping point, and she went over it. In playing in the boys field and playing hard to get, there is that fine line between mysteriously attractive and annoyingly arrogant.



But I like the idea of a girl making the first move. When I was eleven years old I sent a Valentine's Day gift to a boy I had a crush on and I think that can be seen as pretty audacious. It was a heart shaped red cardboard with heart shaped pasta glued on it and it said "will you be my valentine?". And what did I get in return? Nothing. Not even the acknowledgement that I had sent anything at all. I know I was only eleven but seriously, this is the kind of rejection that sticks with you for a lifetime. I mean, yes, i only remembered this episode as I tried to find some kind of example of me making the first move, but I think the reason why it's the only example is because it must've been traumatizing. So I admire the girl who sends a drink to a guy she finds cute, and I respect the girl who isn't afraid of rejection, because they go for what they want and don't give the guy all the cards. Maybe I'll try it some day, soon, just to see how it feels. 



When I think about it, I guess the way we flirt all depends on the mood, on the time and place, and on what you want from him. You don't flirt the same way with someone you want to sleep with that same night, than with someone you want to live happily ever after with. You don't give off the same vibes and you don't say the same words, and your body language is definitely different. But one thing is for sure: you never know where that first move might lead you. The boy I sent the V-Day card to? He's been my best-friend for the last 15 years. So it's all good.