Category Archives: Life

Twisted Sister

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I am in a shit mood this morning because of two events back home in New Mexico. Both have to do with my sister—the one to whom I no longer speak. I try not to use gender-specific insults when I actually mean them, which eliminates the adjectives I want to use to describe her. She is a terrible person. 

I’ll cover these in order of importance, because the first one is just plain stupid, the second one is physically dangerous. The first is that my sister is getting married this week to someone who is, by all accounts, a great guy. And I’m happy about it. I don’t think it’s necessarily fair (I know too many people who don’t get to marry great people), still, if he makes her happy, then happiness is something I want people to feel. Even …  

Her. 

Besides, my parents are thrilled that she found someone, and my niece really loves him, and a good stepfather is priceless.  

This is how she chose to tell me: 

You may have already heard from someone else, but I just wanted to let you know that [my boyfriend] and I have decided to get married on April 10th. We don’t expect anything, I just thought I should tell you. 

I’d feel a little nicer about her actually taking the time to tell me, but clearly her arm had been twisted.  

No one in my family has asked if I’m coming, or even expressed any sort of regret that I’m not. This is actually very painful to me. I know that they don’t want to get in the middle of a fight, and they think it’s easier just to let the two of us “work it out.” (We won’t.) And so my family and at least one friend is going to be taking part in this big-deal thing, but because my sister is such a [don’t use gender-specific insults, Jeremiah! Don’t do it!], I’m not a part of it. I feel like I’m being punished for her behavior. And because no one will talk about it, I don’t even feel like I’ll even be missed. 

Going anyway would have been a challenge, because I currently live in Qatar, which is nine time zones away. While I was talking to my father yesterday, he had an idea: if it was okay with Evil Sister, maybe he could set up the laptop so that I could watch the wedding on Skype. For starters, this made me so happy, because it suddenly felt like my absence would be noticed. Second, if I could avoid actually talking to Evil Sister, I wanted to be there. Because I’m family, goddammit.  

I didn’t expect Evil Sister to be okay with it, which is something I totally respect. It’s her wedding after all. This is how she chose to tell me: 

I don’t my wedding day to involve dad being mad at me, so I would appreciate it if you said no about the Skype thing. He never asked me before he invited you. I expect you to say no, but I don’t want you to end up trying to make him happy at the expense of everyone else’s comfort. 

It’s the first thing I saw in my e-mail when I awoke. I replied: 

I’m sorry that Dad never asked you before mentioning it to me. That was a little inconsiderate of him. It also really touched me, because I’m happy that you’re getting married, I really am. I had actually wanted to watch the wedding on Skype. I had planned on coming up with a way that you and I didn’t actually have to speak, or if we did, to be curt and cordial. I still don’t like you. 

Your message is childish and rude. 

By the way, I put some thought into it, and the answer is no. I’m not going to tell Dad that I don’t want to Skype. I respect your decision not to have me there, and you can rest assured I won’t be, but I’m not going to lie to him for you.  

What followed was a long string of back-and-forth in which she told me to “go ahead and think you’re fighting the good fight,” and I told her I actually am being sincere, and that “I know what kind of person you think I am, because you’ve told me. Why should I bother trying to convince you that I am ‘fighting the good fight’? I don’t have to pretend to be the better person.” She concluded by telling me that if I really wanted her to wish her well, I should stop attacking her. Which I think counts as a surrender. I shouldn’t take as much satisfaction about that as I do. And really, that last line about “the better person” wasn’t necessary, but it made me feel a lot better.  

And so, if you’ve made it this far, than you are either entertained, horrified, or bored, because this is just a ranty, venty, self-absorbed blog entry about some stupid family bullshit. I really hate this woman so much, and I wish I didn’t. This morning, though, reminded me how much I’m not missing. And while I finally got to be as vicious as I wanted to be to her (without using gender-specific insults), there is one issue related to the above, though, with which I’m struggling. Do I take the part of the e-mail exchange where she says “I will talk to dad and he will be sulky at my wedding because he tried to force a reconciliation between two people who will never be able to have a conversation” and somehow share it with my parents?  

Yeah, I didn’t think so. 

Habits

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I left the United States a year ago to come live in Qatar, located on the Arabian Gulf, next to Saudi Arabia, about 275 kilometers from Iran. In that time, I’ve acquired some habits I’m going to have to overcome when I return to America. Here are but a few: 

– Tipping no more than 10 percent. 

– Not recycling. 

– Free valet parking. 

– Fearing the wrath of custodial staff if I try to dispose of my empty tray at the food court. 

– Driving on sidewalks (this is not an exaggeration). 

– Wearing, at most, a fleece while walking outside in January, even at night. 

– Expecting full-service at all petrol stations. 

– The phrase “petrol station.” 

– Paying fifty riyal (13.50 US dollars) to fill the tank of a gigantic FJ Cruiser. 

– Assuming that every driver on the road will not obey traffic laws, thus freeing me to do the same. 

– Going out for Lebanese fast food. 

– Abandoning grocery carts in the parking lot wherever. 

– Paying for everything in cash. 

– Dropping three hundred on a fancy, schmancy dinner for two and thinking that’s a really good deal 

– Spending four hours at a table during dinner. 

– Cutting in line, not out of rudeness, but out of sheer necessity. 

– And the metric system. 

Metered Praise

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I’m slowly getting used to the metric system, but there are still setbacks. For example, I still feel a little weird going up to the butcher’s counter and ordering things by the gram. Today, though, was the biggest hiccup, when I tried out the compound’s treadmill for the first time, and was running at 9.0 for two minutes without gasping for breath (recall that, for the past year, I’ve had sometimes-crippling asthma), and I was thinking, “I must be Superman!” 

Until my wife reminded me of that whole kilometer-versus-mile thing … 

You Auto Know

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I’ve only been behind the wheel of our beloved Stella for the past week, and I’d like to take a moment to talk to you about driving in Doha. 

Every place I’ve ever lived (except for Nebraska) has claimed to have the worst drivers on the planet. Traffic in Florida is responsible for 29 percent of Dave Barry’s entire career of a writer. The spectacular car chases on the California freeway in every Michael Bay movie are actually mini-documentaries. And the things I’ve seen on the streets of Ecuador still chill me to this day. They’re all amateurs.  

Driving in Doha is the only excuse you need to drive like an asshole. 

From what I’ve learned during my stay, nothing on the roads is illegal, and that includes vehicular homicide … well, there is one exception: red lights. Nobody runs a red lights in Doha. Nobody. Hell, if you cross an intersection on a yellow light, even the Qatari locals will call you a dick (keep in mind that the locals have been known to ram people from behind for going too slow, and too slow for them is anything less than twenty kilometers above the speed limit). 

And yet, there’s something civilized about the it all. See, back home, if someone cuts you off, you unleash a stream of expletives that would make Richard Nixon tell you to take it down a notch, even if there’s kids in the backseat. Here, if someone cuts you off, you say, “Well played!” In the States, letting someone take a turn in front of you is an act of kindness. In Doha, letting someone take a turn in front of you means you lost the battle with honor. I have seen more people use their blinkers here—even when they’re going left from the center lane.  

Long story short: the Asphalt Thunderdome of Qatar is oddly relaxing. 

Paws to Reflect

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I am dead tired now, because I didn’t sleep well last night. Partly because the cats returned home at 2:30 a.m. 

Newcastle head-butted me so hard he lost his balance. Repeatedly. 

Magik then advised Kate, through a language made up of meowing, purring, and kneading, that, if she promises never to let anything like that happen again, she may scratch his belly. Keep in mind this is a very exclusive thing—neither President George Bush nor President Barack Obama has been granted the privilege of scratching his belly. 

Andrew immediately set upon a path of exploration and destruction, like Francisco Pizarro. 

And so, even though a lot of our stuff has yet to arrive, and even though I’ve only lived in Qatar for three days, it’s officially home now. 

The Things I Have Been Doing

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So far since the tenth of this month, I left the country for the first time; got altitude sickness; saw so many volcanoes that even a Catholic country like Ecuador can’t possibly provide enough virgins to appease them; stood on the equator; flew business class for the first time; recovered from altitude sickness; rode in a Zodiac on thirty-two separate occasions; snorkeled near a shark; collided with a giant sea turtle; swam near what appeared to be the Cliffs of Insanity; got charged by an iguana; saw a coffee plant in the wild; exchanged currency for the first time; got altitude sickness; slept in a monastery, which may be the only hotel room I’ve ever been in without a King James Bible in it; walked among ancient temples of unimaginable scale; fled from an elderly photobomber; watched horses dance; climbed the steps of a still-inhabited Incan city built more or less vertically on the side of a mountain; said “sil vous plait” to a Hispanic waiter instead of “por favor”; rode on the Orient Express in South America (I am not kidding); let out a gasp after stepping through a small stone doorway to unexpectedly behold all of Macchu Picchu; encountered a Ghost Llama with a Purple Ass; danced to a Spanish cover of “Jailhouse Rock” (no one was hurt); gazed into a pit twenty-three-feet deep, fifteen of which were buried in carefully arranged skulls and femurs; is now trying to remember that the customary greetings in the US aren’t “Buenos dias,” “Buenos tardes,” or “Buenos noches”; and has had, overall, two of the busiest weeks of my life. 

End-of-the-World Announcement

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Next month, Kate and I are leaving the country. Specifically, we are moving to Doha, Qatar. I have been struggling in vain this week to compose an entry full of flowery, rambling prose to describe how I feel about this, but words fail me. 

I am beyond excited; I live for adventure, and you cannot tell me this isn’t an adventure. 

I am beyond scared; I’ve never left the mainland US before. What kind of foreign-culture-language-shock is waiting for me in the Persian Gulf? 

And I’m a little sad; over the past four years, I’ve built up a life, with good in-person friends, Monkeys with Typewriters—a support group for those afflicted with active imaginations, and Nicole—our roommate who only moved in this past September, yet is someone I can’t imagine not having around. 

Since Kate and I got together for good in 2004, we’ve moved three times; but with her, I’m always home. And in a month, we’ll be physically overseas. And we’ll be home. 

A whole new world is out there for us to explore, and I, for one, can’t wait. 

Not Another Dream Movie

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I dreamed the ideal college/teen movie the other day. Well, maybe not ideal—the pretty, most popular girl in school made friends with the sensitive, nerdy boy without hiding it from her peers in order to preserve her social status. And her peers were cool with it. And the nerdy boy didn’t fall in love with the popular girl. So maybe that’s not right. 

However, all of the characters had to pool their individual, surprisingly useful talents with the cool, rebellious professor (nailed that one) to save a historic, nostalgic building that the unfeeling, corporate board of directors wanted to tear down for “progress.” So I guess the subconscious brain got that right. 

Also there was a wacky moment that involved hiding in a cupboard … I’m sure marijuana was involved in that. So I guess the subconscious brain got that right too. 

Clearly Nerdy Boy is based on me, the evidence being that he’d spent some time doing amateur IT work on Popular Girl’s computer, joked with her about blackmail, and, on his way out the door, told her, “I’ll be back with an anonymous typewritten letter and some demands.” 

Alas, my brain promptly forgot most of it upon awakening, as brains tend to do. 

A Brief Tale with Many Layers

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I was strolling along on the sidewalk, minding my own business, when, suddenly, an onion. A red onion rolled down the hill. An onion with no apparent origin, for I alone stood on the entire length of the sidewalk. 

Was this a celestial onion? An onion of the gods? Was the onion passing through my story, or was I passing through the onion’s? So many questions. So many tears (because onions make you cry, see?). 

It’s about Time

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This morning, I’d been showing my roommate a newspaper from Christmas Day, 1998, and at some point, I realized that a day that, to me, was one from just a few years back was actually her thirteenth birthday. 

My niece was two years from being born, while two of my dearest friends in the world then had a two-year-old daughter. The former spends her time making swords and fashion accessories out of duct tape, and the latter is an incredible young lady with graduation over the horizon. I’m sure to my parents, I’d left for college just a few months ago. 

This isn’t one of those “I feel old” posts, but rather just a way of reflecting how time passes differently, depending on what fraction of your life it is. For my roommate, it’s half, for my niece it’s just over 115 percent. For me, it’s only a third of it.