Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I’m thinking of you all as I celebrate with my family here and I hope that the holiday season is bringing you all the wonderful things you deserve! This year Santa kindly brought me extra 8 pounds. And he got lazy because he put them all on my stomach. New Year's Resolution #1: Ease up on the pita bread?

Or do what every other Lebanese woman has done and eat to my heart’s content, wait until I gain more weight, and get liposuction! Also botox, a nose job, and breast implants. Yes, yes, much better.

Anyway, I’ve been doing very well since the last time we updated. We recently moved into my uncle’s empty apartment in Beirut. I walk to the beautiful downtown shopping and restaurant area, I can walk to the water, and of course we all know that this is the best part, I can walk to all the best Beirut bars and night clubs. Now all I need to do is make friends to go out with and I’m set. (How do I do that again?)

I’m in the mountains right now, which at first I really found to be a challenge. But as of last week I am an official jabal (mountain) girl. Well I would argue I’m really a Beirut girl, but what I mean to say is that I am also a cardholding member of the jabal club.

I suppose I should tell you what happened last week to initiate me into said club, but before I begin, let me explain that when I say I am staying in the mountains, I don't mean the Himalayas or the Rockies. Mount Lebanon is mild in comparison and the villages are relatively developed. Let me also explain that when I say developed, I don't mean buildings and malls, I mean two gas stations, a grocery store, a hair salon run by a middle-aged man, and sixty-three toy shops.

I'm sorry to ruin the romantic image of me rolled up in a sleeping bag counting the Lebanese stars, exhausted from my daytime hike to fetch water, but aside from freezing temperatures and the lack of anything remotely fun to do other than watching horrible Christina Ricci movies on the two English TV channels, my grandmother's house is probably pretty similar to your grandmother's house. Unless your grandmother lives in a small village in, I don't know, Alaska, and likes to stuff you with various baked goods, and doesn't have the internet, in which case it is exactly like your grandmother's house.

A note on the freezing temperature: it's not. It's actually no colder than 45ºF. But it will get colder and actually snow, at which point I am hoping to either be in Beirut or have jumped off a Lebanese cliff. At times I can see my breath in my bedroom. In the movies (half of the basis of all my knowledge), when you see a character's breath, you're supposed to say, “Whoa, it must be damn cold.” So by this logic, it must be damn cold here. But not to worry, my grandmother has provided me with a gastank-powered behemoth of a heater that instantly warms the entire room with the strength of a raging fire. It's not my fault I need this, it's really evolution that has adapted me to a land of sunshine and warmth. It's debatable science, people, look it up. Also, please look up what happens when you inhale too much gas.

Anyway, the way I became an official jabal girl is based on my own misconceptions of my parents' childhood. My mother and father both grew up on this very mountain, in this very village of Btekhnay. Actually, if we're going to be technical, my father grew up in Btekhnay and my mother grew up on the border of Btekhnay and Hamana, but their houses are about four minutes apart, so in my head they were neighbors who grew up unaware of each other and years later fell in love and produced one of the most amazing women to ever live. And also my sister.

My parents have told me stories of how, during the actual freezing winters, they would sit in a small living room and study by candlelight. Thus making them contemporaries with Abraham Lincoln, who I believe also did the same. Mom, Dad, and Abe I'm sure, would sit in these rooms which, translated into English, are called “winter rooms”, or “only room in the house with a heater.” My mother would pour coffee for Abe, much at the displeasure of my grandfather who was of course trying to hook her up with my dad. But then Abe said, “I'm sorry, I must travel to the colonies and one day free the slaves.” She of course understood and let him go. But even to this day there isn't a $5 bill that passes through her hands without a tear dropping on it.

Now, although Lebanon is trying to enter modern times with its highway billboards and shopping malls, much like Abe himself it still has yet to escape the past. A good example of this is that homes, whether in the city or the mountains, still do not receive electricity 24 hours a day. If you can afford it, you can subscribe to a company which will provide backup power while the electricity is rationed to some other part of the village or city. This is of course a separate bill, but it's automatic and you usually only have to wait about 30 seconds or so for the power to kick in.

So this hasn't been too big of an inconvenience for me, except for a moment or two. Our water heater, for instance, can't run on the backup power. So if you want to take a shower and the water wasn't heated on the electricity, you're out of luck. And just because it was heated doesn't mean it will stay that way. In about 2 seconds, you can go from singing in a steaming shower to screaming in water so cold that you fully understand the Titanic finale. Whether you're Jack or Rose really depends on if you can slosh out of the shower fast enough to survive.

And the second moment was yesterday, when I felt a connection with my parents for a few hours. It was about 8pm or so, which in mountain time is about midnight because it gets dark around 4 and there is literally nothing to do except change into your pajamas and read until you fall asleep. Which is what I was doing when the electricity went out. “Hardy har, Lebanon you rascal,” I thought as I sat in the dark waiting for the backup power to kick in so I can continue The Ridiculous Race. If you like hilarious travel literature, which you obviously do because you're reading the over-the-top hilarity that is this blog, then you'll love this book by Steve Hely and Vali Chandrasekaran. (Dear Henry Holt and Co.: you may email me regarding my payment, thank you.)

A dark minute went by and I thought, “Hm. Weird. Usually I'd be reading again by now.” But, as usual, I got distracted. “Wow, it's pitch black in here. Really, I have never been in a room this dark.”

Then I got to thinking about how in cartoons (the second half of the basis of all my knowledge), when a character is in a dark room and blinks, his eyes are white circles on the black screen. Well, what if this wasn't just a characteristic of drawn rabbits or ducks but really a natural trait of all human beings? How would we know otherwise? We obviously need to be in a pitch black room to see if, like cartoon characters, our eyes appeared in the dark. But has anyone put themselves in this situation? And because we cannot see our eyes, we do not actually know if they indeed glow. Were cartoonists actually scientists ahead of their time and forced into the underground where they could only serve progress by their Looney Tunes? Was I, Nasrin Aboulhosn, many-a-time-scoffed-at literature and writing major, on the brink of a revolutionary biological discovery?

Clearly.

I turned to where I thought the mirror stood and began to open and close my eyes slowly. Nothing. Maybe I'm not doing it fast enough. Yeah, a quick spot of white may catch my attention. Hmm, nope. Maybe that's not actually where the mirror is; let me try a bit to the right. Hm, to the left?

Then I saw a flicker of light and thought, “My God, I was half joking.” Not entirely joking, though, because there is still some part of me that wishes that I lived in a cartoon, and this part still plays a very active role in how I see the world. I excitedly began to blink rapidly, trying to think about what I should say when I accept my Nobel Prize (it's really easy to get it nowadays). That’s when my grandmother said, “What's wrong with you?” and I realized the flicker of light was a candle and she was holding it.

A note on my grandmother: she is literally the most selfless person alive. Also: she likes to make dirty jokes, calculate how long it takes to get from Point A to Point B, and thoroughly explain how each passerby is related to the other as well as to me. She is famous for remembering birthdays and phone numbers. She has no formal education but speaks five languages and knows more than I will ever learn. She is quite possibly the coolest person in my life and if all I get out of this trip is a closer relationship with her then it was more than worth it.

The soft candlelight instantly transported me into a different room, nay, a different time. It lit up but a small corner of the room but it was beautiful in a days of yore sort of way. I said, “I thank thee for thy gift, grandmamma. I bid you goodnight.” But she pretended not to hear me.

The candle was indeed beautiful. For about ten seconds. Then it was boring. What was I supposed to do now? That's when I remembered my parents crowding around the heater and the candle practicing their letters. Okay, fine, for all I know, they could have sat under fluorescent sky lights learning about 20th century technology as it relates to contemporary history, but for the sake of my story, get over it.

I think on those simpler days fondly, so I decided to join my parents and Abe in their ye olde tyme memories. I curled up near the candle and continued to read about Steve and Vali's adventures. I tried to ignore that I had to angle the book nearly parallel to the floor to read it and that every ten minutes I had to change positions to follow the light. I tried not to notice that both my legs were asleep because of my curl in the corner. I was even successful in not caring about the small hint of gas still wafting around the room. I was trying to appreciate the romance of a world not powered by technology.

For about ten seconds. “Screw this,” I thought, blew out the candle, and practiced glowing in the dark again.

Thus the life of the jabal girl. I’m glad we moved to Beirut because I've run out of mountain jokes. I can't keep saying, “Is she coming round the mountain when she comes?” every time my grandma says someone is coming to visit. It's simply not funny.

No job yet, but I'm glad I got this time to spend with my family and explore both the city and the mountains a bit. Not to say that I'm not desperate for something productive to fill my time other than pretending to be able to read Harry Botter and writing in my blog. I have a few ideas brewing, I'm working on it.

Again, Merry Christmas and I’ll hopefully update before then but I’m wishing you all a Happy New Year!