Enjoy these pics from Paris while I prepare a funny and curious look at the Paris of Europe in comparison to the “Paris of the Middle East.”

A pyramid just in the middle of le Louvre...

Mmmm, yuuummmmmm. Apricots et pistache!

Chocolate, with a sense of humor!

The perfect Parisian cafe.

Le Louvre under the full moon.

Who is this guy?

A pharaoh, taking a break. "You want pics, you give tips!"

So cool!

Dear Gracious Readers,

Thank you so much for taking the time to read CER. If you’re interested in getting updates each time the blog is updated, please take 30 seconds to sign up for automatic notices. In the sidebar here to your right, under “Subscribe,” click on “e-mail.”

Thank you and enjoy the latest post below, “This Is the Year”!

Rima

It is a new year and predictions of an impending spring or summer war with Israel are swirling, as is customary at the dawn of a bright new year for us veterans of war, pessimists, newbies, and conspiracy theorists here in Lebanon. The predictions are not restricted to hearsay, but also formal discussion.  Each peaceful new year brings fresh and increased money, backpackers, longings from the diaspora, multi-apartment building complexes, memories, pubs, dancing limbs, plans and commensurately an increased paranoia that the house of cards will fall and splay. This year, people swear about an impending war, as if for the first time: “I never believe it, but I think this is the year.”

Has the Lebanese-Israeli-Iran politics/news changed much in the last few years? I mean, I quit reading Lebanese news regularly after the tent city came down in 2008. But every time I take a gander, it seems like I just took a bathroom break and came back; I can keep up with the news like one keeps up with Days of Our Lives: same characters, who are at each others’ throats, have come back from the dead or from prison, or are cheating on their partners! Iran continues its nuclear technology campaign; Hizbollah continues to expand its capabilities; the Lebanese government…whatever. Of course, the script is loaded with new dialogue and suspense-building rhetoric! Nasrallah threatens that if Lebanon or Iran is attacked, the retaliation will “change the face of the Middle East region.” And supposedly, June 2010 is the deadline for Israel’s patience with Iran. Meanwhile, Lebanon has been told on several occasions and in so many ways by Israel that next time they’re bothered, all of Lebanon will pay – for their support and tolerance of the Party of God.

In July 2006, during the 33-day war between Israel and Lebanon, I was in Chicago. I was teaching by day and working at a Middle Eastern restaurant/night club by night. Through the haze of shisha smoke, I watched people dance to “Raje3, raje3 yit3amar, raje3 Libnan…” while it was being bombed away in real life. And people came up and offered their condolences or told me how their family was from Bint Jbail where the intense bombing occurred. The music bang- banged in my head. I would come home in the wee hours and turn on CNN, which showed footage of frenzied anchormen in Israeli scenes of people wheeled into emergency vehicles. And the rest was aerial views of Lebanon going up in smoke. I wasn’t the only one who cried from a distance for our country. I believe that the war of July 2006 was not preceded with the paranoia that has persisted since. Whereas that war was “restrained” to targeting infrastructure and Hizbollah, the next promises less restraint. Yes, there are reasons to worry.

But while the separate parties broadcast their defenses, our individual defense strategies kick up like party shoes. Whether we claim “This is the year” or “No way, that’s what everyone says every year,” the reality is that it’s very possible that we may soon be sitting under an assault that surpasses July 2006 or inside a regional war that may actually change the face of the region. And change the face of our lives as we know them. And which no doubt, a la Pat Robertson, The Party of God or/and the Israelis (depending on who comes out on top), will surely attribute it to GOD’s divine will. This is what we’re dealing with…

Will this year be the year? I hope it’s never the year. We are a people, a land. We are people in a beautiful land with families and homes and history and lives. With breakfast, bike rides, and tetas. And people say “This is the year” like it’s normal! Like everyone is used to it!  And so do you get it when I say I’ve become the typical Leb because despite the grim possibilities and the fear-mongering and the U.S. terror list and the wagging ragging fingers, I’ll be hitting Dany’s tonight and maybe head over to Walima for a tango dance…

I do not believe that a taxi driver has made an appearance in this blog. Alas, just as in any lane of traffic, he has forced himself into this one.

It was Christmas Eve, and I was on my way to the village. Luckily it wasn’t raining in the way that flips your umbrella into a large spasming tulip, but it was still an early dark evening with heavy holiday traffic, and I was burdened with several different-sized bags whose handles laced through my fingers or bottoms rested on top of other bags. I and another woman hailed down every taxi that drove by; in turn, we shouted our destinations, which happened to be close in proximity. Yet, taxi after taxi rejected us until finally one hit the breaks in the middle of traffic and gruffly gestured us in.

The regular indiscriminate act of hailing any taxi and getting in will never be so regular and indiscriminate again.

“Sir, I have a lot of bags…could you please pull over to the side?”

The walrus driving the taxi did not reply. Standing outside of the car, leaning closer in, I tried again. Perhaps he didn’t hear. I wouldn’t know, because after raising my voice, he still did not reply. I sighed and began putting my bags into the front seat, one by one, and then my leg…

“Leave them outside and I’ll put them in the trunk,” he finally spoke, meanwhile not budging.

We were still in the middle of the street. Okkkkay, I thought. So, I pulled my leg back out of the car and began to pull my bags out as well, but I mentioned that I didn’t understand exactly what he wanted.

PUT THEM OUTSIDE AND I’LL PUT THEM IN THE TRUNK!!!!! He bellowed.

I quickly grabbed my bags and snapped, “I am not going anywhere with you!” and pushed the rusty door shut with my foot and swore his sister’s genitalia (my least favorite and most politically incorrect swear word/phrase, but the first I can find as I don’t usually swear in Arabic).

I fumbled back to my original hail-down corner in a huff to await another taxi. I was setting my bags down, my vision blurry with exasperation, when a tall African man suddenly appeared and asked shoo saar (what happened)? I remember seeing him out of the corner of my eye standing against the wall of the pharmacy; he must have smelled trouble. My tongue coiled because when I looked up, I saw the walrus swimming toward us.

The African man began hailing a taxi for me – COLA! – referring to the bus station (which is near an old Coca Cola factory, hence the name). When luckily a taxi stopped, he quickly grabbed all of my bags, placing them in the trunk. The walrus was now on the other side of the African man, my defender, who stood between us.

“Sharmuta! (Slut!),” he spat. “You don’t swear at me!”

And on and on, his eyes dripping an oily hate as he grabbed for me to, presumably, beat me in the middle of the street. “Ma3laysh, ma3laysh,” my defender told him as he leaned over him, blocking his way to me. Apparently, altercations with taxi drivers have been common as of late. Is it road rage? The traffic has become thicker. And a nightmare for the nerves. The streets a battle field of metal and angry faces.

Fine, I shouldn’t have sworn at the guy – I was contributing to the road rage, which led to an attempted attack in the middle of the street. But, I had the bittersweet chance of witnessing a most humane act from a member of a cadre of people who spend their lives treated as slaves primarily, humans rarely. It was the lowest man in the pecking order, the African domestic worker, who actively saved me a beating from my fellow Lebanese. He was so intuitive and quick-witted. How had he known what needed to be done so quickly? And what made him care enough to put himself in the middle?

As I sat safely in the new getaway taxi, I rolled the window down to wave thank you to this man who dashed to save me without a thought of his own safety. Without asking for anything in return, in any way. But he stood with one foot back up against the wall of the pharmacy, sunken into the shadows of his own thoughts. He had silently slipped back into his place, his job done.

In the foreground, just a few feet from the taxi I sat in, was my Lebanese brother, who prepared the most insulting trifling act and launched with all his heart – I ducked and his spittle splashed the window.

New Year’s Resolutions

#58: Find that African man and give him a long-armed hug.

#59: Learn less dangerous flagrancies.

#60: To care more often to put myself in the middle.

This is a small tribute to a one-year anniversary. The one-year anniversary of my first-ever engagement to be married. Scratch that. This is not a tribute to that. Yes, it’s true that one year ago, I and a ______ (I cannot decide how to describe him) man decided in a casual conversation that we should spend the rest of our lives together. Three days after Christmas and three days before the New Year, we bound our fingers with pretty rings. Three days after the New Year, it was over…

I want you to respect me, he said.

That man has been looking at you all night.

And you’ve been giving him the eye.

To be sure, “spend the rest of our lives together” was a fuzzy reverie, a stanza of its own, born of a heavy presumption: “this is the one.”  Each, independently, having announced to our separate worlds, definitively and by virtue of serendipity – we met in a taxi at the border of Lebanon and Syria. How does that happen and then not happen? Just like a movie, I’d say.  The taxi, the “chance” meeting, being that point in the love story when the action begins, cupid’s arrow set assail, fate’s lasso flung.  The story plays out with all its thrilling twists and turns and conflict and subsequent triumphs, then the movie ends.

You’re my best ever love, he said.

This was a mistake!

Don’t ever call me again. It’s over.

I never want to see your face again.

What was real? Desire and poise to be loved, safe, stable. Timing. A long-distance beginning, anticipation. Fantasy-making. Family approval. Trips into nature. Holding hands. Naivete. Foreigness. Obscurity. Jealousy. Blame. Rings and dates and commitments to life, to conventional things that make us feel we’re on track, normal, good in others’ unrelenting eyes. Proverbial culture clash. Judgment: He said, “I could not ‘accept’ you.” I say, you could never know me. We could never reach each other – there were too many years and oceans and cities and convictions between our lives.

It’s all your fault.

We are not only humans, we are dancer. We are products of separate geographies and choreographies. I will not call it East versus West, as this dichotomy oversimplifies our identities and pardons our small individual actions by virtue of our membership within a mammoth expanse of culture and space. Will we ever be responsible for how we treat each other? For how we see the world? Has being human become less relevant?

Love in Lebanon today is cross-eyed. In fact, my conviction of this is so strong that it inspired the title of this here blog as a result.  We are all mixed up between the images of the sweet young pure woman-in-waiting for the suave gentleman to pull up in his BMW and enter her home in humble request of her company and soon after her hand; and today’s opportunities to date and experience what, in the past, was meant for only married couples to experience. The major shift: women have new roles in the workforce, and therefore, new freedoms. And so today, love’s choreography is classic, but with a contemporary twist. But, who is making the compromises?

Recovering from this breakup often took me out into nature, for therapy. One day I was taking a walk along the corniche when I spotted a sad looking girl about my age, who was staring out into the sea. I took a seat next to her on the bench. A young man stood just across from us, leaning against the railing, holding the leashes of his two German Shepherds. With his other hand, he chucked an empty plastic water bottle into the sea. I expressed my disgust, “What, is the sea yours?” And he “apologized,” smiled and posed, shifting from leg to leg, apparently interpreting the disgusted comment as flirting. The girl sitting next to me said, “You cannot say anything. They won’t leave you alone. I came here to be alone.” I asked her if someone had made her sad, as it was obvious in her eyes and demeanor. She had a ring on her engagement finger.

“He goes with other girls and does things with them because he can’t do them with me,” she reasoned. “But, how much more can I take? I put the hijab on for him. I forgive him. I don’t see my friends anymore. I gave everything up for him.” She said it was the first time that she came to sit by the sea in months. I remember feeling aggravated and determined to push a thought into her head, words that were told to me, that gave me a push out of my own recent misery and self-deprecation over a self-righteous person: You deserve better, I told her.

She nodded and hardened her eyes, but I could still see the soft, tattered outline that indicated she needed a whole lot of strength training to believe this.

My own tattered feathers molted only with the strength and love of my family, friends, and strangers who, I found, knew me better than I knew myself in one way or another. And also knew the kind of person who I had dealt with – one who shames and blames, only after getting his way – far better than I had. They surprised me. Everyone from my 77-year-old grandfather to the stranger on the plane who I recounted the whole story to, told me the same thing: You deserve better. Why hadn’t I come up with that on my own?

This new view reminds you that, particularly in matters of the heart, your interpretations are at the mercy of your insecurities, ignorance, and mostly – your desires – not your good sense. Example: Whenever my and this person’s proverbial “cultures clashed,” which bespoke our roles as man and woman, what is respect, and who decides propriety, I interpreted that being in the role of a minority member – a Lebanese-American in Lebanon – I had done wrong.

This conclusion disregarded my personal convictions about what a relationship should be, and persons’ rights therein. For example, I knew it was wrong that I was being blamed for someone “looking” at me or for going out with my friends to the pubs or having male friends or having a past. His conclusions were unfair and misogynistic – and due to his interpretations of who I would/should be as a wife. But I could not accept that he couldn’t “accept me” as I was! Culture clashes could be fixed!

So I shunned my convictions, in that confused and devastated state of mind, believing instead that I could have done a better job of showing him that I loved him – I should have been more sensitive to him as a person, and also as a Lebanese man. I should have asked more questions. Ignored less. I lost him and it was my fault, and I believed that.  I could be better. And perhaps my liberal ways, which America had taught me, needed to be put in check.

It’s funny and true: “When in Rome…” In this case, “When in Lebanon…”

As a Lebanese-American, I always shunned the decision to marry someone after a short period, in this case just 3 months, which is usually the time it takes to move past being polite! But this is normal in the Arab world. The implications are that you should know in a short time if someone fits the bill – and if you’re good on paper and you can stand the way he smells, why not! I was willing to turn myself over to a foreign life, in this foreign way, even though many of my 30-something Lebanese counterparts were past this, having fought the endless taboos our culture had drilled into us since we said Hello World. Today, revolutionaries march through Beirut, to the beats of their determined drums to be who they are and demand what they believe. Yet, despite all of the growing, traveling, learning, and experiencing, I somehow felt secure following this traditional, easy, “safe” route, which manipulatively whispered, this is your best bet. I was charmed by the comfortable duo of all that is Lebanese in the Lebanese man and at the same time all that he adopted from the outside. I was seduced by this person’s desire to sweep me up as quickly as possible and “take care of me.” I had never thought I would accept to be in this position, nor had I ever felt the inclination to. I figured it was love.

It’s a year later. And as in war, in love there are always wins and losses that must be accounted for. What did I lose?  Tolerance, respect, patience for that which only serves itself. I lost a portion of my naivete. Trust. I lost myself for a while. Eventually, I lost the fear of being who I am.

I won. A deeper insight into the differences between here and there. A life-changing look into the true people my family members are, and embrace of their unconditional love. The wise words of my friends. I gained the friendship of a few strong Arab women with whom I feel solidarity. I gained a fire in my heart that promises to burn that which resembles the flimsy convictions that only serve particular groups of people at the demise of others, and a fire that keeps me believing that we all deserve better.

So, no, this is not a tribute to an anniversary, a repetition, a re-run. No, this is a tribute to change that develops from all that hasn’t changed.

To be continued…

My post-break reading list – chosen for their titles

Astonishing Splashes of Colour, Clare Morrall

Old School, Tobias Wolf

Country of Men, Hisham Matar

Yellow, Janni Visman

The Human Stain, Philip Roth

Thanksgiving has always been turkey, ham, food in general.  It’s always at my parents’ house. Uncle Dan and Aunt Lily driving up the street, arriving from Chicago, in their black Cadillac. Aunt Lily carrying a tray of delicate powdered cookies, each with a circle of red or orange jelly in its center.  Football droning on the TV all day. My mom zigzagging the kitchen. I, waking up late, loitering, not really helping. Same with my sis and bro.

Sometimes we have special extra guests besides Uncle Dan and Aunt Lily, and they are always more warmth to our crisp November day. We always say grace before we eat. When it’s my mom’s turn to give thanks, she gets choked up with emotion. Uncle Dan always bows his head and chooses his words with care, always giving thanks for Aunt Lily. My brother once gave a sincere thanks. I usually throw in sarcasm or a joke, though I hope one day I won’t. My sister was engaged on Thanksgiving 3 years ago. My current brother-in-law, the poor guy, was forced by Aunt Lily to get down on one knee, after he surprised my sister with a ring. Apparently that was very teary as well, but my dad and his dad shoveled right back into their plates, while everyone else at the table cried. I was here in Lebanon, so missed the whole thing, but I saw a video.After the hours it takes to prepare the meal and the minutes we sit to eat it, the kitchen becomes a washing machine.

Then, the whole day shifts. It’s dusk now and part two of the day fades in. The football games are coming to an end. Lights are turned on in the kitchen. And the table is spread with a blanket in preparation for a little 7 1/2. For those of you who don’t know this game, it’s a card game similar to Blackjack, but rather than 21, your goal is 7 1/2. I won’t go into the rules until you put your quarters and dollars on the table. Aunt Lily hates when we play this. She thinks that gambling is the devil’s work. But, we get a kick out of her reaction, which has become a part of the tradition. Later in the night, the Peoria bars become a reunion ground. Years ago, I had an opportune conversation that spurred the friendship with one of my best friends today on a Thanksgiving “reunion” night. When I was in grade school, every Thanksgiving we made construction paper cornucopias overflowing with fruits and vegetables. I could open a museum with all the damn cornucopias I made. I love Thanksgiving because it’s one of the few holidays during the year which is predictably traditional. And primarily about being with family and reuniting. When you’re away, the memories are certainly tinged with nostalgia.

In these parts, there are a few Americans. And a few Lebanese who like Turkey. And so we’ve come together to eat and be merry, and reenact the true story of the Thanksgiving between the Native American Indians and the Pilgrims, who ate together in peace, harmony, and collaboration almost 400 years ago, before the opportunistic and judgmental Pilgrims, who had fled Europe’s bloody holy wars and relied on the Native Americans’ knowledge of the land to eat and survive, started badmouthing the Native Americans about their manners and religion which led to their murderous fighting and eventually a genocide.

Oh, I mean, we just reenacted  the first part. Yea, just the part up to “collaboration,” thankfully! We’ve got enough holy wars without adding another, over turkey dinner, no less! Truth be told, it was actually a union of strangers, where most of us met for the first time on this night.

The owner of the house, father of our hostess.

It's all in the hand gesture.

The hostess, the cook, and grandpa (on the wall).

The spread: a $150 turkey surrounded by a scrumptious stuffing and zucchinis dressed with cranberry! Baked sweet potatoes. Goat cheese salad. Baby spinach & beet salad. Yum.

Grace.

Deftly carved.

My empty plate next to some important looking people, in pics.

Kathy telling her story of how she barely dodged a kidnapping in Egypt.

A toast to Kathy's getaway.

Pizza Hut arrived, after a paranoid phone call from our hostess. She thought we would run out of food.

All's well that ends well.

For an interesting point of view on the “real” first pilgrims to America and “lost histories”: French Connection

Anger has been wrapping its gummy tentacles around me lately, stroking and pinching and squeezing my soft bones, tempting my patience. It was just a fresh random typewriter, a Smith-Corona, brown and cream, strangely resting on the sidewalk. It had a dream-like quality sitting so comfortably and haphazardly placed, at a slight angle to the curb. I looked left and up and to the side, making sure there were no eyes. Gingerly, I placed it under the green dumpster, nearby. Tucking it out of sight with a few foot taps. And carried on toward the corniche for my morning laps.

I returned and dumped my head upside down, eyes peering where I had hidden my lost and found.  It was no longer there. Turning around, my face surely appearing distressed, I found the usual few men sitting in chairs, just behind a fence. I ran up to them, like a child who had lost her dog, where oh where has my typewriter gone? They waved me over with a few smirks and one man stood, as the Chief Clerk.  He came toward me and spoke in Egyptian, it’s right over there, his long-ashed cigarette pointed. I turned around and saw the typewriter, golden and glowing, on a table under a tin shelter. That’s mine! I yelled. I put it under the dumpster, it’s mine! No, no, I swear by your eyes, the tall one said. It is mine, for I saved it from a man who tried to make away with it. I paid him twenty thousand pounds. I swear by your eyes. No, that’s not what happened! Yes, now give me twenty thousand pounds, and you can have it! But it’s mine! And I walked away, with my head down. Perhaps I could inspire pity in them. No one yelled.

I walked toward home and the tentacles pinched and grew ever tighter while my arms flailed and punched the air. These men they didn’t care, they just wanted to be paid. I didn’t like it, not at all! They held the typewriter for ransom – found it under a dumpster, and now wanted to sell it. Typical typical! I said to myself. Nothing mattered more than those tender paper bills. The face is always a man, telling me, at BHV, yes, this DVD player plays any DVD! (Not a one). At Liban Post, that package will make it to the U.S. in 10 days! (6 months after my mom’s birthday, nothing). A friend of a friend, renting my apartment for the summer: I will leave it better than when you left it! (1 million LL in electricity later…).  T-mobile! T-mobile! “Automatically debiting” from my bank account, months after cancellation! (non-human human voice: We-are-sorry. We-cannot-do-anything…). And there have been more, many more men who’ve crawled under my skin, but I let all this go, it could be worse, much worse!

But now, they were dangling the prize for a price. And it was time for some face to face.  I steamed on my way up, and back and forth on my apartment’s parquet and all the way back down the elevator, and down the hill back to those typewriter thieves. I would go back and settle a deal. He wanted 20 thousand? I would give him half.

I clutched a yellow bill – a 10 thousand in my hand. And stopped in my tracks at the sight of one of the men hunched over and pressing the typewriter’s buttons, and dinging its carriage. Another came along and said, We saved it from the garbage men! Here’s 10 thousand, I said. OK, and they handed it over. The Chief said, look, this button here is the only one that needs to be fixed. Don’t let anyone trick you and tell you it needs more…it’s just this button. Shukrun! I yelled and lugged her home.

I placed her on my dining table and pressed and slipped into it a piece of paper. I clicked and clicked and no response. I turned it around and found it was a bit advanced. Not a normal click-click writer. It was electronic and it needed a wire.

The moral of the story?

Pessoptimist: Coined by Emile Habiby in his book The Secret Life of Saeed, the Pessoptimist. Saeed, a Palestinian in Israel could not decide which exactly he was:

Take me, for example. I don’t differentiate between optimism and pessimism and am quite at a loss to which of the two characterizes me. When I awake each morning I thank the Lord he did not take my soul during the night. If harm befalls me during the day, I thank Him it was no worse. So which am I, a pessimist or an optimist?

When I found out that I won a job at AUB and would be moving to Lebanon, it was on the morning of a lovely sunny Chicago day, and the last day of the semester. It was an e-mail: “We are pleased to inform you…” It invoked in me an ephemeral feeling of utter joy. What had been a sort of fantasy for me – teaching at this prestigious university in the motherland – would be real, and the actuality of this fantasy in light of my pessimism and doubt was the main reason for this joy.

As I anticipated, the joy dissipated into a deluge of anxiety. It was soon after I had confirmed my acceptance of the position when we were driving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for my brother’s graduation. I began placing objects and memories into my new future context. In jest, I said about an old service-style Mercedes that drove by: “I’m gonna buy one of those when I get to Lebanon.” My parents, who were excited about my move to their balad, laughed. But then my dad, being an avid LBC viewer, broke the news, “It hasn’t been calm there these last two days.” The war in Nahr el Bared had begun.

And I begun making my phone calls, chats, and e-mails to my Lebanese family members and friends. They assured me that the fighting was isolated and it’s far and that life was “normal.” That one couldn’t feel anything out of the ordinary – everyone was going to work and all. Furthermore, everyone was “against” this loose terrorist faction. On the morning of my departure, aunts and uncles came to say goodbye. As I had become obsessed with the news, I ran up to check the latest to find the headlines. The war was over! Hooray! The army had seized control of the camp! At the time, my knowledge was limited to what I read in the news, which was never critical of the operation. From my vantage point, the Lebanese army had defeated these terrorist elements, and taking down the entire Palestinian camp was just a necessary evil in the process. And I would have fewer terrorists to fear. It was that simple.

On my second day in Lebanon I took part in a parade in Sassine Square celebrating the army’s victory over the terrorists in Nahr el Bared. Everyone raised her flag for the army in praise of their “success” – it had been awhile. Having just hatched from my Lebanese shell, I might as well have been perched on top of a cedar tree, crunching on kri-kri nuts holding a round of cards in one hand and a peace sign with the other; I might as well have been whistling the national anthem too. My national pride was at a peak, and no person, street, or tree was beyond my adoration or cradling arms.

This was also the year, 2007, that Lebanon would experience a presidential vacancy for months. The night in November when Emile Lahoud left Baabda palace without a replacement, I was in a local ex-pat pub during its weekly Friday happy hour. There was a buzz about the impending vacancy. But the only person who seemed fazed was a man who warned us to buy milk, as all hell was about to break loose at midnight – Cinderella Lahoud was leaving and there was no glass slipper in sight. But I was perched at the bar with a student who I escorted there to conduct her primary research on Lebanon’s inhabitants’ “mysterious love for Lebanon” despite all the bloody trouble. All of the white-skinned drinkers boisterously praised the food, the hospitality, the kind people, the liveliness, the feeling of feeling alive. The presidential vacancy, the random bombs, the recent war in Nahr el Bared nor the obstructive tent city had deterred the ex-pats who could live anywhere of their choosing, but chose Beirut. And my student, a Lebanese who had lived in Saudi Arabia for most of her life, excitedly took notes, sighing with intoxication from the energy, that everyone could be so jubilant and careless in the face of so much stress. We lifted our huge mugs of Almaza and clinked them, none-the-wiser.

In the meantime, the tent city erected by the March 8 opposition party was alive and well in the downtown center. The tent city looked like a littered village, full of men pulling on their hookahs. They were not budging until their demands were met. Everyone had an opinion on the situation and they ranged from spitting disgust to fiery revolutionary cause.

Then came the May 7, 2008 events when Hezbollah militiamen and others and their guns took the streets of Beirut in protest of the government’s proposed decision to remove Hezbollah’s telecommunications network and resign the airport’s head of security after finding surveillance cameras there set up by Hezbollah. I was in De Prague Café in Hamra when the first shots in Hamra were spent. We spent the rest of the night in the café, drinking rose and eating, digesting our anxiety. When I and others were finally able to take the streets the following morning, escorted by De Prague managers, who apparently had “friends” out there, I arrived to my apartment where the fighting reignited. Militiamen came into the apartment building; they thought we were harboring a sniper. My neighbors, who were all hiding in the basement of the building, in between workout equipment, thought it was the “end” when they saw the barrels of the guns first, even before the tall men who followed. I was in the bathroom at the time.

After the gunpowder settled, my grandfather charged through the door and whisked me out of Hamra, southbound. I spent the rest of the week in the village where people played cards and drank beer, and fussed over the situation. I understood why many people say, “The days during the war were the best.” It was a time when people could be close and coop up without guilt and argue and eat lots of chips. And my story of being stuck in the bathroom when the militiamen came in was told over and over. My uncle said that was worse than their stories during the war because it was so invasive. Ironically, I did not think it was such a story. I would tell it while I laughed, sure that everyone around me had suffered much, much worse.

Then came Doha. After about 9 days of fighting, that had spread throughout areas of Lebanon and left hundreds killed, the Lebanese politicians put their suits on and hopped in a plane to Doha, Qatar. This materialized into the Doha Agreement (Details: Blogging Beirut). On my way to university, the news filtered out from the open door of a taxi driver’s car. We had a president! The tent city collapsed! The restaurants downtown opened over night and the celebrations began! I went to one of these restaurants and shook Fouad Siniora’s hand. Haifa and Majida el Roumi took the outdoor stages, and I went. I sang in the crowd with Majida el Roumi, and I felt a rush of excitement and joy that we had a president and the tent city would be no more. In the same Hollywood happy ending fashion, Sarkozy called the Doha Agreement a “great success for Lebanon and all the Lebanese, whose courage and patience never failed despite the ordeals they have been through.”

As a result, the summer ushered in new store fronts, pubs, and restaurants, and hundreds of thousands of visitors. One year later, we had relatively fair and successful democratic elections. And this week, about 6 months after those Lebanese politicians were elected, a government has finally been formed (Details: Qifa Nibka). The politicians have reached compromise. And today, Hariri presided over the first meeting at the Grand Serail. This is relatively good news. But, as for me, I know a few things now. I think I’ve joined many in becoming an “alternative” pessoptimist; even though I’ll admit it could have been worse, I am not praising god, and I am certainly not celebrating.

For an interesting point of view on a self-proclaimed pessoptimist at the following blog: “Informed Comment: Global Affairs”