Sleep Walking

Now I’ve always had a reputation, since I was a child, for wanting to go out, but I seem to have taken that reputation to a whole new level this weekend when I took a walk outside in my sleep in the middle of the night. Not the first time I have wandered around in my sleep (my last episode was about 18 years ago) but it was the first time I have walked out of the house.

I have no recollection of “getting up” but I do have hazy memories of parts of that night. Since then, I have been trying to piece together the events of my sleep walking episode, which now seems kind of funny but was very, very terrifying then. I must have gotten up and wandered into the living room, but I don’t remember doing that. However, I remember bumping into a coffee table in the living room and knocking over a few candles, and then trying unsuccessfully to put them back in their place. I then blank out completely again until I’m in the corridor outside my flat. It seems I unlocked the door and walked out. I am not sure where I went initially, but the soles of my feet were relatively clean when I finally “woke up” (seeing as I was wandering around barefoot and in my pyjamas) so I most probably didn’t make it outside the building.

A hazy image of the guy who washes the cars downstairs at night is imprinted in my mind, but I am so mortified by the notion that he could have seen me wandering around in my pyjamas acting all weird, that I’m not going to ask him whether I was in fact downstairs or not. I am trying to persuade myself that I could have seen him through the corridor window, after all.

Now, everyone that knows me, knows I have a deep-seated phobia of cockroaches. I remember looking around me, standing in the corridor, to see if there were any cockroaches. My boyfriend pointed out that since my subconscious seems to have kicked in, even in my sleep, to look out for those horrible, horrible monsters, it must also have prevented me from wandering around barefoot outside, seeing as I hate stepping on dirty things! :)))

I think I finally woke up at the sound of the elevator reaching our floor (had I been on it or was someone else coming up at 5 am?). At the elevator “ding”, I found myself at the end of the corridor, aware that I was outside and sure that I shouldn’t be there. I made my way back to the flat, opened the door and walked in. There was my sister, looking terrified. She thought I had gotten up to go to the bathroom, and had finally gotten worried when I never came back to bed. It never occurred to her that I had in fact opened the door and walked out.

I scared the hell out of both of us. We are now taking some preventative measures at home. She locks the door and hides her key, while I put my key (which I need to open the door to leave to work in the morning) under her bed. If I try to reach for it, determined to break out of the house, she’ll wake up since I probably won’t be very light-footed and quiet. In the morning, when I’m “really” awake, I can get my key without disturbing her sleep (poor thing now wakes up every time I turn over, scared that I’m going to take off again).

Needless to say, I’ve gotten my fair share of wisecracks, like the suggestion to sleep with those squeaky kids shoes on so that I can alert everyone to my movements, or to put my bike out in the corridor, so I can get some exercise while I’m at it. Seriously though, I hope that was a one-off incident. I can’t imagine what would have happened had I wandered further off.

Shameful stereotypes

Typical, I thought when I saw this picture … I dismissed the car's occupants with my usual, "what can you expect, they're Lebanese."

But I found myself eating humble pie when I read further to discover that they actually live in the neighborhood, they haven't come to stare at the local residents, their circumstances are not defined by their “look”, they’ve actually made important contributions to the relief work and I am a damn racist.

Its much easier to slot people into stereotypes – one glance and I know what I'm up against. I don’t have to think, I don’t have to make any effort and I am usually right (or so I think). I dont come across as a typical racist, but then again, there really isnt anything typical, is there?

Citizens of Blogspot

I pledge allegiance to the Great State of Blogspot, for it has succeeded where our national political and social systems have failed. Blogspot has allowed me to cross socio-religio-economic “fault lines” as Dubai Jazz so aptly called them, and meet someone I never would have met otherwise in real life. You see, Dubai Jazz and I come from “different” parts of Aleppo – you know, those religiously segregated parts that never meet despite being only a few kilometers apart. He hails from one religiously defined neighborhood and I from another. An otherwise seemingly innocent question of which part of town are you from, immediately categorized us along those fault lines.

I might meet Dubai Jazz on the street somewhere in our vast city, but we would never talk, let alone have lunch. Got to thank whoever invented blogging for helping two compatriots discover that not only can they have lunch together, but that they might actually have a lot in common despite living across the great divide. It was great meeting you, Dubai Jazz!

Self-Righteous Indignation

I seem to have a bad case of self-righteous indignation; the guy that cuts in front of me on the highway gets an earful, the impolite woman who bumps into me at the supermarket without bothering to apologize is called a few names (muttered under my breath), and the loud, pretentious couple at the next table are labeled some very unbecoming names. After six years of living in a multi-cultural society, I have come to the following conclusion: everyone is an uncivilized and arrogant moron.

Or maybe something is wrong with me. What is it that bothers me exactly when someone jumps the line on the highway exit? Is it that I’m going to be late? Is it the fact that I feel like an idiot for queuing for over half an hour, and someone gets through in a minute? Do I secretly want to do the same thing, but don’t want to lose out on the chance to flaunt my indignation at other peoples’ rudeness and idiocy? After all, the anger and resentment I feel when someone does something wrong matches any rudeness on their part.

Maybe I should get over this self-righteous indignation, and jump the queue, bulldoze into someone and walk on, talk at the top of my voice, leave my tray on the table at the food court for the cleaners to pick up, touch the bread at the bread counter with my hands, berate the waiter when my order is late, park across two parking spaces and de-silence my phone, choosing the most annoying ring tone that can be heard five offices down.

I might find myself liberated from a civility that is only surface-deep, or I might find that I do the things I do because they make me feel better about myself, regardless of what others do. You have been warned, rude and arrogant person no. 1,354,698 about to be unleashed on the streets of this city – wish me a safe return, convinced the ways of selfishness and arrogance are not for me and happy to park further away at the mall because all the 4x4s have taken up more than their allotted parking space (after all, its good exercise)! :)))