to be free

Last night I was having a sleepover at my cousin's house --it felt like I was thirteen years old again and we were each under our covers in the dark talking until we fell asleep. And as I talked about my life and everything I love about it right now, I realized that what really feels amazing for me lately is being absolutely free. Free to come and go as I please without having to justify myself to anyone. Free to only do things I want to do and not have to take anyone into consideration. Free to leave a party early or to get wasted,  to kiss anyone I want or kick someone out of my bed. Free to put myself first.

I feel lucky, I've got an easy definition of freedom: I felt burdened by a sense of responsibility I didn't want and now that I'm free from it I have never been happier.


But it's not always that simple. To be free doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. For a fourteen year-old girl who wants to be out later than midnight, to be free means to have no curfew. A 27 year-old guy who has been in a relationship for three years and feels suffocated by commitment, just wants to feel free to have one-night-stands. My friend Gay wants to tell everyone he likes boys and be able to kiss his boyfriend without inhibition. My parents wanted the freedom to love each other even though they were from different religions. And for my friend Brave who is handicapped from head to toe and hasn't walked in over ten years, it means to be free of his body.

For the Tunisians, the Egyptians, the Libyans and the Syrians it means to be free of dictatorship.  For Casey Anthony to be free is to get rid of her two-year old kid. For Amy Winehouse it's to be free from addiction. For that psycho from Norway to be free is to kill 76 people to prove a point. For Zeid Hamdan to be free is to write a song without getting arrested for it. 

No it's not that simple. Because to be free from dictatorship, countless people have died and you've still got the same man playing God over the masses. Casey is free and Amy is dead. The psycho from Norway has people using their freedom of speech to blame his actions on Islamic Extremism. And as a friend said and I quote "Zeid's free. What about expression?"

Freedom feels so great it's obvious why we all fight for it --and why the fight is as old as the world.
Makes you understand why Adam ate that apple.

save a life

Our lives are made up by a series of trivial little things.
We go to the bank and spent half an hour in a line waiting to cash a check or make a deposit. We run to the supermarket and we go down the list and go back and forth and in between the aisles and somehow always end up forgetting that one crucial thing. We to the gas station, and sometimes we sum up the energy to leave our car there to get itself washed. We go shopping. We buy presents for birthdays, for engagements, for weddings, for newborns. We go for lunch --because I came home starving and I couldn't believe there was Bazella, again. We spend money on things that make us happy, make us smile, make someone we love happy. We get our hair done, our nails painted, our eyebrows shaped. Then we go out for coffee. We read a book, browse the internet, watch a movie. I get upset because my sister wore my shoes, took the car, or is watching TV when I wanted to watch. We take a shower, sometimes a bath. I cringe when my dad asks me questions about my day. We go for dinner. We try to get a reservation at Skybar. We make a few phone calls, get the password, put some make-up on. We go for drinks. We wear high-heel shoes and start suffering within the hour, and why do we have to "suffer to be beautiful"? We flirt with a guy, we make-out with our boyfriend, we want to have sex but don't have a place to do it. We have a place to do it but we don't have condom. We have a condom but he doesn't want to wear it because you know how much it kills the pleasure.

They might be trivial things but they make-out our lives. Some people wake up in the morning and there are 30-thousand other people sleeping next to them. They have flies running up their nose and into their ears. They haven't taken a shower in weeks, because there isn't even water to drink. They have walked for 17 days with three kids on their back and a pregnant woman. They lost a child on the way, but they couldn't take his body with them because it slowed them down, so they buried their child in the desert and they were so dehydrated they couldn't shed a tear.They arrive at a refugee camp and there are 3-thousand other people who also just arrived and they wait, in turn for a ration of food, a drop of water. Everything trivial that they do is to survive.

So do something today. Save a life. It takes two minutes out of your time and don't you think that not getting your nails painted this week is worth saving a life?

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a Lebanese weekend

I want to tell you about my weekend. Mostly because it's the first weekend in 4 months where we weren't on set shooting for "Beirut I love You" and I was having some serious withdrawal symptoms. But then again, it's summer, and I haven't had a summer-like weekend yet so I went all in.

Friday night, I had dinner with one of my closest friends who was here "de passage," for a wedding of course, her seventh of the season. We did the whole "let's catch up in an hour and half" thing when you just give the highlights of the last few months and, in perspective, so many stories that felt important along the way don't make it to the final cut. Then I spruced up my  attire, adding high-heels and gold earrings in order to enter the epic Lalaland of Skybar. I usually risk it once a year, just so I can reaffirm my hatred when friends try to convince me to go. That way I can say with absolute certainty that yes, I still hate it as much as last year, and no, I will not be coming next Friday. Now I know it's part of our national pride or something, and should probably be in the runner against the Jeita Grotto for the Wonders of the World thing, but I hate it. And it's not Skybar itself that I hate, because it's a beautiful place, obviously, but that music; and those new screens with the light shows; and the fire; it's like what one of my friends called it "a modern day circus." Seriously, I know us Lebanese love to go and look at each other, males riveted by females wearing short dresses or mini-shorts, and girls starring at each other always finding a way to put down the beautiful girl who just walked in because "her toes are crooked" or "she's not a real blond" or "she actually has a fat ass if you look at it closely." And I'm not saying I've never done it, I'm just saying I hate that I actually stand there and participate.  Of course it wasn't all bad --mis-a-part my poor feet that really aren't used to a night in high-heels.

On Saturday, we got ourselves up early and were at our favorite summer place, Jammal, by lunchtime. It's an annual tradition for us to gather on the pebbles, tables and chairs in the water, eating fish until we burst and drinking Arak and/or Rose for about seven hours. There's usually 20 of us harassing the poor waiters assigned to our table. We laughed about each others sex lives (well mine mostly) and tried to be polite in front of newcomers, the respective dates of some of my friends --and we came to the  realization that all the guys on the table were attached, and all the girls (who weren't their girlfriends) were single. Makes you wonder. But every year people have come and gone from that table on the pebbles --some are gone for good; others, perhaps, have joined for good, but the core is always the same.

We stopped by McDonalds on the way back and each ate a full meal, with supersized fries and cokes. And we all felt like throwing up afterwards.

Now Saturday night was a whole new experience for me, as I attended a gay birthday house party. Don't get me wrong, three of my closest friends are gay and I love them to pieces, but this was still an experience. First of all, we don't have that many house parties in Beirut. Second of all, there was an agglomeration of thirty guys in a super cool and neat apartment, with a buffet of neatly cut and shaped fruit on the table. And I had the best time. Samantha, an Italian hot-stud who I so wish wasn't gay, told us the story about when his mama came to Lebanon and wanted to visit Sabra and Chatila wearing Chanel from head to toe and a big summer hat. Now imagine him telling this story with an Italian accent. Priceless.

On Sunday, my eternal brunch buddy came back to the surface after months of neglect. I went with him and Classy to have lunch at Tawlet. We spent the afternoon in the AC watching the most depressing movie of the year, Winter's Bone, and then we had to put thirty minutes of Gad Elmaleh just to change our moods.

At night, it was the BILU reunion [Beirut I Love You cast and crew] since I wasn't the only one having withdrawal symptoms. We went to have dinner in Bikfaya, at our director's beautiful house. We ate, we drank, we had a guitar. And we were all in the garden singing Bob Dylan and the Beatles and apart from the random beetles and insects that scared the shit out of me a few times, it was perfect. And this is going to sound cheesy but that's ok, we could all use a small amount of cheesy in our lives --we were singing Coldplay's "Beautiful World" and I had a thought: I had a very Lebanese weekend, from one extreme to the other. But what makes it Lebanese isn't Skybar or Batroun or Tawlet or Bikfaya. It's the human connection we encounter everywhere we go.

Cause everybody here's got somebody to lean on.

when did we get to that age?

Summer used to be about the beach. It used to be about the sun and the sea and the fact that we didn't have anything to do for three months except sun-tan and have a good time. It used to be about a week in Faqra in August, a trip by boat every once in a while, beach parties at night. But somewhere along the way, summers have come and gone merging into the other seasons, ending before we realize they've begun. I have to consciously stop and look at my calendar, and tell myself that it's July 14 and I haven't been to the beach yet. Not once.

But then again, there is one thing that also reminds me we're in summer: the white flowers hanging on every other door, the invitation cards flooding the entrance table, the harmonious beeping of car convoys... the names changing from double to triple on Facebook (I like this trend women have of keeping their maiden names, so modern-chic), pictures of the big day flooding everyone's walls, the honeymoons in the Maldives or San Francisco.

So when did we get to that age again? Because I think I missed the memo. Just yesterday we were sixteen and we would beg our parents to let us out until 2am and we would sneak out in the middle of the night, have sleepovers, play truth or dare, get drunk and spend the rest of the night throwing up in the guest bathroom of a friend's chalet in Faraya. Now I log on to Facebook with my morning coffee in one hand and my jaw drops as everyday I discover that a friend who I played barbies with when I was 10 years old now has a baby. And bless her heart, she's the cutest thing in the world and I'm so happy for her, but again --when did we reach that age? I log in again this morning and I see another one who is pregnant. I go out for drinks with my friends, and all everyone talks about is that dress she bought for thingy's wedding and the shoes she bought for the other wedding, and there's a wedding on Friday and two on Saturday and the engagement party and the bachelorette and if I hear these words one more time I think I'm going to scream.

There's never been a truer moment for me to say time flies. The last three years have gone by so fast I haven't had the time to pause and catch my breath. Next thing I know I'll be the one adding a name to my name and parading pictures of my belly. Maybe. And suddenly that whole Peter Pan story has a whole new meaning.

I flirt therefor I am

Flirting is an art in and of itself. I'd say it's a new, modern form of art, as before the twentieth century, there wasn't much room for flirting. But now it's all we do. We flirt with the policeman who dared stop us because we were on the phone while driving and he ends up by asking for our phone number. True story. We flirt with the guy at US customs so he doesn't give us trouble because of our Lebanese passport and he ends up asking if "you need someone to show you around the city?" True story. We flirt with a teacher because we failed an exam. We flirt with the bartender because we want to get two seats on the bar and it's Saturday night. We flirt with the bouncer to get us into Skybar, we flirt with the DJ to get him to play "our song," and here is the magic of it all: girls flirt all the time, pretty much to get anything. Guys on the other hand, mostly flirt for one purpose: getting laid.

Here's where it gets interesting: make a guy think he has a slight chance of getting some, and he will pretty much do whatever you want, within the realms of reason. And sometimes way above.

Now every girl has her own flirting strategies. I have a friend whose tactics involve breaking a guy down. She basically stands there and verbally attacks him until all he wants is to take her to bed. She calls him an idiot, she mocks every other word he says, she puts herself up on a pedestal and boom: the guy is bending backwards and forwards trying to make body contact. I was actually getting uncomfortable by her harshness, but he said it made her "interesting." Go figure.

Another girl I know will always make a guy feel like he's the most amazing man in the world. She will laugh at everything he says, open her eyes wide when he mentions he works in private banking, she will strategically place her hand on his chest several time during the conversation and bam: the guy wants her to show the same kind of attention to the part of him growing in his pants.

Flirting is fun. And when you're in a relationship, it's something you miss. Remember that episode of Friends when Chandler tries to flirt with the pizza delivery girl, and Monica says she's not jealous because she flirts with guys all the time? We flirt all the time because it gives us a sense of validation. I flirt, you respond, I feel like I still got it. There is this guy I know who was sick for several months, and as he got better and his looks came back to normal, the only thing he wanted to do was test his flirting and see if it still had the same effect. He left his girlfriend because she couldn't give him that validation.

It's too bad we forget to keep flirting with our boyfriends. Make him work for sleeping with you tonight instead of having sex on the dot like it's part of a routine. My aunt, who has been happily married for 23 years says she still flirts with her husband every day. And what happens? he flirts back. Moral of the story: keep treating your man as if he wasn't, and you'll live happily ever after.

Beirut RATsodies: dating beyond borders

Lebanese live abroad, work abroad, date abroad. I asked one of the guys to talk about his experience of dating a non-Lebanese. This is the RATsody of the month!

Dating beyond borders

Lebanese men seem to have become accustomed to the concept of dating foreign girls. We hear of the Lebanese who moved in with his French girlfriend in their 15 m² apartment; the friend who got married to an Italian girl he met 6 months ago, only to divorce 6 months later; the colleague who is dating an American blonde who seems to come straight out of a Hollywood teenager movie.

When you leave home to settle in another country, dating a foreign girl becomes an adventure that follows very specific stages. You start by hanging out with other Lebanese and feel awkward about approaching locals. Then, you’re puzzled about the idea. You think it would help your integration. You’re excited. You can’t resist her blond hair and blue eyes. You make a move and you intend to test the claim that French girls are great in bed. It generally doesn’t really work the first 2 or 3 times. Then you find the perfect match, get to know each other, discover a new culture, move in together and feel that you finally belong.

That’s until the moment of truth arrives, when you invite her to come spend a week in Lebanon… Because no matter how much you prepared her for the ride, or how many times you asked your parents and friends to be nice and always speak English, things unfortunately never turn out as easy as you thought: excitement is replaced with awkwardness, discussions about your parents turn into conflicts, English turns into Arabic. Then you realize what “lost in translation” feels like, and that the same jokes are actually not that funny in German.

Being part of a family that has a significant number of unsuccessful experiences in the topic, I knew I would be facing issues introducing my foreign (now ex-) girlfriend to my family.  Initially, my mother didn’t like the idea of us living together – not to mention the fact that we shared our apartment with her huge dog, that she was 2 years older than me and spoke a local dialect that often required a quick search on Google translate. Less than a week after introducing her to my entourage, annoying questions started popping up: why is she dressed like that? Doesn’t she wear any make-up? Are you really planning on marrying someone who doesn’t understand our culture? Before I knew it, they were already trying to introduce me to their friend’s daughters or sisters. I wondered if only they could learn a little from our politicians who seem to know how to please their foreign counterparts even more than the local people who elected them.

Don’t get me wrong, the experience obviously has lots of upside: teaching her swear words in Arabic, taking her to Baalbek and realizing it’s the first time you actually go there, or being proud to show her how many good friends you have at home. When I was away from Lebanon, I loved how simple our relationship was, the fact that we didn’t have to deal with her parents every day, that issues such as religion and age difference were not that big of a deal. I also appreciated not having 50 friends in common with her and not meeting her ex every time we went clubbing, which seemed to be very common experiences for my friends back home.

So how can you make it through without the hassle and the conflicts?  First, prepare yourself mentally to face the challenge and the criticism; Prepare your partner to the test that she is about to face and help her get through it: buy your mother a gift on her behalf, remind her to call your dad on his birthday, help her find common interests with your best friend. At the same time, show your entourage how much she means to you and remind them that she truly makes you happy.

Most importantly, make sure to explain to your partner that in Lebanon, dating beyond borders means she’ll be in a relationship with your parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, culture and origin!