On Routines

You wake up in the morning distinctively prepared to start your day, realizing that the day has begun without you, the phone rings. A friend is on the other line "Allooooo", "Hey what's up? Keefuk? Ca'va".

Conversation about this and that ensues, none of which is particularly interesting, a former friend has rejoined the group, another is traveling to find work abroad, and still another is distancing herself because of a boy she recently met; same old, same old.

The group of friends you now know are relatively the same group of friends you met in college, or through work, and they are replicas of each other: boys dark hair slick and brushed back, short cut, the random weirdo has long hair, and sometimes you will find a blond in the group. The girls hair colors and textures vary dramatically, from curls to simple straight black hair, but they are all wearing Mango, or Zara, or some rendition of the recent fashion ins.

You could categorize groups of people by language and hobby, the english rock stars, the english nerdy weirdo's, the english druggies, the english rich snobs, the arabic religious people, the arabic non religious people, the arabic confused people, the arabic politically affiliated people, and then the (wait for it) french. (the author means nothing by this comment as she willing falls into the category of english nerdy weirdo)

Of course categories aside there is little fixedness to who hangs out with who and how and when they hang out as the country is very dynamic and in many contexts the sects are forced to interact with one another. This is not the case all throughout Lebanon, simply in Beirut.

Anyways, your phone call ends, and there you are deciding what to eat for breakfast, whether to go to work, or university, or where ever you go. Clearly, the choice is not in your hands, (most of the time) so you dress, do the deeds of the day till 7, when you meet up with your group of friends who are cursing that the traffic at five could not get any worse, which is odd since everyone leaves work essentially (or so they say) at 7.

Conversation erupts about who is right and who is wrong and who is destroying the country and what political representative needs to fry; a voice in the crowd mentions they all should fry, and general agreement is warped back into this group versus that group, and how this politician is hurting his followers versus that politician who is not.


In any case, the evening ebbs, the week ends, and you are at a club with friends drinking a little too much for your own good, but hey its the weekend and Gemayze is hopping as are you from place to place as they are all full. Dressed to the tee you find yourself a cosy friend to have serious guy talk with.

The conversation turns sour quickly as the number of decent guys in Beirut are dwindling...this is tantamount to the fact that there are not enough men in Lebanon.....but it really is worse than this, there is an epidemic-there are no good guys in the world, the universe, hell there is no hope we are dying alone and single with cats and bad skin.

The night ends after some flirting with some guy you just met at the bar who you wouldn't date because you met him at the bar, but you never know.

And finally you are back in your bed waiting for the week to begin again wondering if the monotony of this routine will wear off eventually. For regardless how dynamic a place is, and Beirut is up there on the list of Dynamic and fun places to live, most things do succumb to routine, and once that happens......................