One day, in 1985, in Beirut. (Part One)

Tags

Beirut war, East and West Beirut, Israel, Lebanon, Mathaf, Soviet Union

Part One: East and West Beirut.

Why I am crazy about the playoffs and the Super Bowl.

Tags

football., game, Georgetown Cupcakes, playoffs, statistics, Super Bowl, traffic, viewers

When I was engaged to my husband, my sister in law said to me:

“ Mirella, you have to know that Jim loves sports, and January is a very important month for him.”

Coming from a non-American country, I had no clue what she was talking about.

I thought she meant by “to love sport” is to be an athlete – I think this is what it means in most other languages.

So I started imagining my cute intellectual husband metamorphosing around January, lifting heavy weight and spending his weekends at the gym.  Little I knew that loving sport meant; watching TV on the couch while eating pizza.

If by any chance you are a sports lover , you should definitely not keep reading this post, especially if your name is Jim and you are my husband (Sorry, babe, if you already did).

If the keywords in your search engine landed you on my blog, I would like to thank you for inflating my viewers statistics and I would like to say that I am sorry for cheating by putting a title like “Why I am crazy about the playoffs and the Super Bowl” when what I really meant was: it is the worse time of the year.  I can explain: I did it because I knew it will increase the traffic on my website.  (Hey, I have to take advantage of the season too!)  However I highly recommend my other posts, the ones of last week they are more serious. (Please don’t give up on my entire blog yet, just because I am throwing a tantrum).

During football season, divorce rate goes up (please don’t ask me about my sources); or probably after the Super Bowl, because husbands are too busy watching football.  Not for me and my husband though.  I think I developed a fond feeling for this period of time where things work for me.  Some of the reasons are:

1- The gym is empty on Sundays; today I could spend over 40 minutes running on the treadmill without worrying of being kicked out.

2- the mall was empty; even the bookstore, I could read the most embarrassing titles without anyone looking over my shoulder.

4- I was able to play the victim and use the you-owe-me-card with my hubby; hey it worked got a lunch at a fancy Georgetown restaurant yesterday.

3- and finally I don’t have to cook tonight, thanks to the pizza delivery.

So today I can finally say that I became a big fan of the football season.

Anyway, so with my readings, my delicious Georgetown cupcakes and not having to cook tonight I am having one of my best days!

Cannot wait for the Super Bowl!

Black and white

What the picture tells us is that in 1970 photos were in black and white;

What the picture doesn’t tell us is that my dress was in fact pink.

What the picture tells us is that in 1970 my family was made of four members;

What the picture doesn’t tell us is that my younger sister was still in the oven.

What the picture tells us is that my mom and my dad were smiling

while my brother and I were making faces;

What the picture doesn’t tell us is that we were chewing the candies my mom gave us to stand still for the picture.

What the picture tells us is that in 1970 short skirts and leggings were in fashion;

What the picture doesn’t tell us is that in 2010 short skirts and leggings will still be in fashion.

What the picture tells us is that even in 1970 our windows were protected with fences;

What the picture doesn’t tell us is that five years after no fences could protect us from war.

What the picture tells us is that my dad was holding my hand;

What the picture doesn’t tell us is how powerful it felt to hold my dad’s hand.

What the picture tells us is that our skin color was neither white nor black;

What the picture doesn’t tell us is that we carry both colors in our inner selves.

A society of voyeurs.

Tags

Annie Leibovitz, Balloon boy, Bravo TV, Huffington post, John Edward, Kourtney Kardashian., Peter Orszag love child, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, Tiger Woods, Vanity Fair

This morning I received by mail my February issue of Vanity Fair.  On the front cover Tiger Wood naked.  Underneath the pictures it said: “Raw, Never-before-seen photos! by Annie Leibovitz.”

Last time I saw the word RAW was on the Vivid porno DVD’s, and today I see it on one of the most respected magazine in America.  Suddenly everything made sense to me:  The obsession we all had for the last months over Wood’s affair was nothing but envy.  No matter how fiercely his behavior was attacked, it is obvious that it is one of the most fantasized situation.  Everybody is writing about it and everybody  is reading about it.  His case reminded me of the same ordeal John Edward went and still going through.  Based on our society’s values, there is a consensus that those two man should be stoned to death, and indeed the stoning did kill their career.

As a married woman and an incurable feminist I am not approving their behavior.  Those two men are married, have families and represent a role model idolized by many.  But, do we really hate them and think of them as vicious people? Or they are just the object of our deepest fantasy?  You might think fantasy for men maybe.  Married men who are bored at home could seek some temporary excitement, and the one with tender heart would just live it through Tiger Wood and John Edward.  But what about women?  Well believe it or not, many women, married or not, did also fantasized of being Edward’s mistress, or just a one night stand in Wood’s ripped arms.  It is not that the mistresses were ugly or anything.  Kelly Rippa, on Live with Regis and Kelly once said: “I am so outraged by Wood’s behavior, he slept with so many women and yet he never hit on me! Not once!”  Of course she was joking but the idea might have crossed so many women’s mind.

Those stories of infidelity are having so much success that the media people are trying to milk it as much as they can.  Recently a new case based on the  story of Peter Orszag’s love child, revealed to me a new face of our society.

Peter Orszag’s  is the White House Office and Budget Management Director.  He, Just like Tom Brady, is going to have a love child.  I understand the obsession with the affairs of the most extraordinary-sexual-one-of-a-kind men like Wood and Brady, but to extend our obsession to the Orszag’s case?  it speaks volumes!

Who is really Peter Orszag? Peter Orszag, who was recently described by the New York Times magazines as the sexiest nerd in Washington DC, well is… a nerd.   Most of all he is a single man who, hastily, had unprotected sex.  His story, at his own huge surprise (and many other people),  is making headlines.  Huffington Post already wrote more than three articles  about him in a week; about his ex-wife, about his pregnant woman and about his current love.   Seriously? like SNL would say:)  Seriously? Who is interested in this man’s sex life?

I realized that if  I, personally don’t have any interest in some single man’s affairs, many people do.  Bottom line, we love to hear sex stories but we hide behind Puritanism.  We are nothing but the modern voyeurs.

Instead of hiding behind the curtains to watch our neighbor in her/his intimate moments, all we have to do is watch TV and read the news.  Bravo TV is full of successful reality shows where you can see the details of  people’s life whom we never met and who will never be our neighbors.   The examples are multiple:  it goes from the Real Housewives (of the state of the union) to Keeping up with the Kardashians…. you can see Lisa Wu Hartwell with her NFL husband Ed planning to have another child (by planning I mean in bed) or simply Kourtney Kardashian getting pregnant.  In the latter case we all saw the scene before the conception took place (and I mean sperm meet egg), well not completely but enough to witness the act! and by doing that, many viewers could be now witnesses on Mason Dash’s birth certificate.

So to satisfy our distorted taste a new kind of people is born: The Exhibitionists.  Who are the exhibitionists?  Well, they are no other than the reality TV casts guilty of being accomplice to the crime of voyeurism.  It  always takes two.  It is unbelievable how far the reality TV casts would go just to flash their life on TV.  And here I cannot help but bring the case of Tareq and Michaele Salahi.  Needless to explain who they are.  Or the Balloon boy, whose parents are desperate for attention.

By the end of the day we are all human being, voyeurs or exhibitionists, active or passive.  We all play the game no matter on which end we stand.  And as a person who switch side depending on the days, I am gonna go now and see Tiger Wood’s raw photos.  It is just because I am a dedicated fan of Annie Leibovitz:)

Talk to you later.

Related topic: Tiger woods reflecting on adultery and public apology

Gifted

I met Kerry few years ago during my internship at Amnesty International in London.

Just like me Kerry is a lawyer, a Human Rights lawyer.  We both were born in less fortunate countries.  We went to London at the same time and lived in France during almost the same period.  I moved to the USA few years ago and she is planning on moving to North America, Canada.

This morning, when I woke up, I found a comment on my blog, that I posted yesterday.  I thought it was my beloved husband who wrote the comments since he is the only one who knew about my new creation.

But no, it was from her, Kerry.  She was the first one to write a comment on my blog.  I was surprise because I haven’t yet solicited a reaction from anyone or even advertised my blog yet.  I was waiting to have more posts so I could start sending invites to my friends.  I was so touched by her move that I decided to dedicate to her the post I will write today.  Especially that Kerry inspired me to open my own blog since she started blogging herself few months ago.

Kerry’s blog is very attaching.  I especially like her blog about her native country: http://kerrycharacters.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/things-aren’t-always-what-they-seem/ I keep reading it over and over again, like a prayer.

In her blog entitled Kerry’s characters , Kerry describes people she met in her life.  She is the character’s specialist:) She analyze people she knows and describe them in a way it become hard not to love them and wish you have met them one day.  Today as an homage to her I want to dedicate this blog to her character, and I hope to “give her justice.”

When I first met Kerry she seemed a single woman, very independent, active, a feminist.  I found out later from the kid’s pictures displayed on her desk that she is a family woman and has children.  Not all of  the beautiful kids in the photos looked like her.  I discovered later that she adopted them.  I wish I remember the exciting stories she told me about how things happened to her, but my memory is failing me now.  Maybe it is better that I don’t remember how the kids came into her life, so the privacy of her life will still be preserved.

Recently reunited together on Facebook, I found out that her family grew bigger and she has now five kids.  I never asked questions but I just enjoy looking at her beautiful angels every time she post a picture of them on her Facebook page.

As much as I would like to talk about Kerry’s ability to embrace and take everything life offers her and about her infinite capacity to give back generously, I want to talk about another skill she has:

When I first met Kerry in London, the rumors went all around the International Secretariat that she had the ability to predict the future.  It was a bit exaggerated but Kerry was indeed capable of seeing scene from the future.  When I asked her how it works, she said: “well it is not exactly knowing what is going to happen and when it will happen.  I just see some times (not all the times) and some people (not everyone I know) at some point doing something and I have a feeling about it.”  After I begged her to try with me, she asked me to give her a photo of my face and she will see if anything will come up.

Our six months of internship went by and we were just about to leave London when Kerry called me at my desk and said: “Mirella I saw you yesterday” I said: “what do you mean saw me?”  I have had forgotten her ability.  We had become very close friends and share our frustration with the internship.  I was so looking forward to travelling back home and all that she wanted is to go back to her children.  She said: “I saw your future husband.”  I was so thrilled to hear that finally her gift is working on me! And she added: “I saw you with this man, blue eyes…..it is weird he remind me of a very good American friend I know who works for the American Embassy in Zimbabwe.”  I begged her for more information but that was all she saw.

Two years after, I was marrying my American blue-eyed husband whom I met at the American Embassy:)

When I was in France, Kerry got in touch with me again, and as we were catching up, I told her that I still don’t have children and I suffered a miscarriage.  She said: “it is funny but I saw you yesterday holding a baby boy”.  I said:  ”no it is impossible.  I don’t want to try anymore anyway”.   Few months after, I was pregnant, but I never told Kerry that.  Unfortunately the miscarriage followed the conception three months after….I still think it was a boy, I could intercept some boy’s organs from the ultrasound… or it was just my imagination since it was too early to tell.

But to go back to Kerry; I don’t know how Kerry got the gift.  I don’t know how it works for her and how she deals with it in her daily life now.  I don’t know if it is a blessing or a curse.  All I know is that Kerry is one of those amazing person who you meet once in a lifetime and she gives you hope.

I am so grateful to the circumstances that led me to know you Kerry and I will cherish your friendship for as long as I live.

Keep writing Kerry, and as you would say “I see you.”

Talk to you later.

Why do we blog?

Tags

Huffington post, Perez Hilton, Politico, Why do we blog, Zen Habits.

The entire blogging idea is a new concept.

When I was young people kept diaries, today they blog.

Two years ago when I heard about blogging I was shocked.  I kept asking myself what make people love the idea of posting the most intimate events in their life on a public website where everyone can see it?

When we were young our diaries were the ultimate secret garden that we hide from everyone.  Some diaries have locks and codes so no one can open and read them.  The most traumatic events in one’s life would be when the mom or someone close to you read your dairy.  But obviously not anymore since people start blogging.

Or is it?  Is blogging like writing a diary? not exactly.

In your diary you put your naked feeling, no matter how raw and primitive they are, but, in your blog you embellish your world.

Diary vs Blogging is like the Moi and the Surmoi.

For example you can write in your diary: “my ex-boyfriend still doesn’t love me: maybe because I am fat and wear bracelet.”  But in your blog you describe yourself as being not less than America Ferrera who is playing the character of Ugly Betty.  Knowing that one day she will take off her bracelet and straighten her hair to unravel a beautiful sexy lady.  So in your blog you don’t have to face the bitter reality of who you really are, and you can let your imagination create the best picture of you.

In your diary you can get angry and show your dark side without worrying of being judge.  So you can say: “Yesterday I was so angry at him, I wanted to see him suffering”.  But instead you just play the victim on your blog and gain everybody’s sympathy.

Freud once said that the psychoses started emerging in our society when humans started censoring their feelings.  I guess he meant when we became civilized.  I don’t have a major in psychology but I think this is what he meant.  Anyway, where I am going from here is, if your diary is your real you and help you externalize your true feelings, blogging is the opposite.

The danger of blogging is living in a virtual world where bad situation become adventures and sad story become a funny entertaining joke.

Another kind of blogging, and the most successful ones currently on the internet, are the one where people write not about themselves or their experience but about other people’s life.

Those blogs are nothing but gossip blogs (just like Gossip Girl).  Those bloggers build their fame on other people’s misery and by doing so they feel good about themselves.  Like the curious case of Perez Hitlon .

Blogs can be good for you too, they can have healing effects and make you feel good about yourself.  Like Zen Habits .

Other blogs about health issues or diet can bring hope and strength to the bloggers, and also to the one who read them.  Like cancer survivors blogs.

Some blogs can help rebuild your self-esteem, and push you to accomplish more than you thought you were capable of.

Blogs can be political, and bring you the latest news faster than any newspaper, for cheaper costs.  Huffington Post and Politico are the excellent two examples of political blogs.   According to Paid Content’s website Politico made $20 million in revenues in 2009 and $15 to $17 million for Huffington post .

So why not to blog?

The questions remain: what makes people so crazy and addicted to reading blogs.  Question I will try to brainstorm on in my next post.

Talk to you later.

First moments

It is Saturday night, 9:00 p.m.

I am still trying to figure out how to post my blogs , add pictures and use the options.

Cannot wait to start my writing and share my thoughts with the world.