I like bullet points. They make my lack of attention span look like staccato brilliance. Yes, I’m some kinda Drill Sergeant Executive Hemmingway Person, not a human-hummingbird-hamster-hybrid. Of course. :D

• The solution to that ugly purple toe nail that has been bothering you for weeks and defying even the thickest coats of nail polish is: having it detach. Makes you hanker after the good old days when you had 10 benailed digits – however discolored.

• As far as Owl becoming a domesticated animal is concerned, I have many miles to go. I tried to make myself buy lipstick last week. With the thought that I may one day WEAR said product. But no matter what I do, putting that stuff on always makes me feel like Bozo the Clown. How and why and in what dimension is it normal for a person to have waxy red junk around their mouth? Makes me feel like I was eating a popsicle with very bad aim. Or trying to snack of a plastic bowl of fruit. Bleh.

• One day, maybe, I will get ok with compliments. I have finally learned to bite my tongue and not methodically attempt to disprove them when paid. But I still sort of flinch when I hear them, and can’t help but wonder what the payer is on. Getting there though.

• And when that day comes, maybe I’ll stop also wishing I was anyone but me. In the meantime, CAN I BE YOU?

• I am kind of embarrassed but pleased to note I have sort of spread the Happy Thoughts Movement. I can’t remember where and when exactly this concept came up in my life. I think maybe Abez and I cooked it up when we were kids after reading Peter Pan. Happy Thoughts make you fly, donchaknow. So when we’d be down, we’d remind each other to find a happy thought to give us wings – like Red Bull without the heart palpitations. As a naturally morose sorta person, it’s been very useful for me – focussing on one thing that makes me smile. And though I realize I’m two shakes away from being a fruity self-help guru with this admission – I’ve lately been wishing my dear ones goodbye with Think Happy Thoughts! But if I start telling you I’m sending ‘good vibrations’ or ‘white light’ your way, please slap me.

• Running is THE STUFF. Though it never doesn’t hurt – the fractured cartilage in my right knee grinds, my left ankle sprain isn’t healed yet, and my lungs always burn – it still does something for me that little else does. I keep trying to figure out what about it is so awesome but I think I should just let it be. Not everything can be explained.

• Went to the shooting range this weekend where I discovered guns may be loud but they’re disturbingly easy to fire. I no like. Slingshots are more my thing.

• Best breakfast in the world: two cups of tea (preferably chai) + half a chocolate chip cookie + half of a rocky-road cookie + lovely morning conversation = afternoon-long buzz.

• I love softball. When I grow up, I’m going to marry it.

• Men in muscle cars are sad and funny. My brand of driving is constantly some apparent massive ego slight to them. I was driving some friends around the other night, doing my customary bat-out-of-hell thing in the fast lane, when a gun-metal Dodge Charger SRT came up behind me. Despite the fact that I was on the very edge of the ticketable speed limit, he wanted the lane. To do what? Be the man, of course. And he wasn’t going to wait either – and had resorted to the customary Tailgating and Flashing. Haha, um, bad idea. Ask me nicely for something, I’ll probably do it in a heartbeat, but try to bully or intimidate me, and you’ve got trouble.

So of course, I didn’t give up the lane. Not right away. I just coasted along, being the ditzy incompetent female I am. Finally when his heels had sufficiently cooled, I moved over, smiling sweetly and motioning my hands a sort of “By your leave milords.”

That, apparently, is also not done. But is also, charming? Because instead of speeding up and away, as Muscle Car Man was planning, he decided to cozy up beside me, matching my speed, edging uncomfortably close, as he leaned across his friend in the passenger side and grinned away to glory. We played tag in traffic for a bit and I guess he realized there wasn’t much he could do by way of weaving and cutting that the girl in the junker couldn’t do as well if not better. I’m the daughter of a cabbie, sister of a street-racer, and cut my teeth on Pakistan’s insane roads. There’s not much on Dubai’s roads that’s gonna faze me.

That was when Muscle Car Man decided to play his ace – his 6.1L engine. Ah yes, my 2000 Corolla with a Civic engine, no matter how I manipulate the downshift, will not compete with that kind of pick. But not to mention, Sheikh Zayed Road is littered with speed radars so there’s no point in really flooring it. When they threw down, I hung back and laughed - wouldn’t do that if I were you boys. But they did. You see, ironically, another sports car had come up behind THEM during their parallel attempted road-romance and been treating them to the same impatient tail-gating and flashing that they’d subjected me to. The nerve. So Muscle Car Man had to show us all what’s what, and gunned it. Right past the camera and were greeted with a friendly CLICK. Such celebrities those boys are – even the police want their photos.

Ah, me, I did feel a bit bad about it though. Apparently, with their fellow species of aggressive driver behind them, they needed to either slow down, or speed up, as I was in the lane over and not giving up my space or pace to let them come over. Ego though, prevented them from hitting the brakes and instead, they sailed past the radar doing about 60% over the limit – around 160 on a 100 kmph road. Had I slowed down and given them MY lane again, they may have been spared the ticket, but ah well. If you can afford to be a jerk in a Charger, you can afford a Dh 600 fine.

“I remember you. But you’ve changed. You used to be so angry,” said the long-since lost childhood acquaintance. A thousand slow afternoons ago, we had shared a shady-lane grammar school, peanut butter and jelly crackers, sticker books and squeaky-voiced conversations. But even if we hadn’t, back then a person didn’t need to know what was going through my head to pick up on my anger – I wore it like a cape. It was the set of my jaw, the cast of my eye and the tightness of my shoulders. It was that taut calibration of my tone – the doubtful, already disillusioned frustration that probably could be picked up by Richter scales and Geiger counters alike. It was the emotion that was the steam in my engine, the steel in my spine and filled the hollow shell of my humanity.

Were things that bad back then? Yes and no. A life that young already can have its share of tragedies big and small, even if I was a far cry from the modern-day Oliver Twist. But also, the bane and the boon of the human experience is, we can only live our own. It doesn’t matter how your lot compares to someone else’s – it is only yours that is larger than life. Misery is misery, whether you feel it because you lost your favorite doll or your favorite parent. At that age, you can’t be expected to temper your reaction with the perspective that comes with experience and insight. So the actual how and whys of the crises that marked my childhood, like anyone else’s, are unimportant. It was their end result that mattered – and that was an anger so potent that it came off me in waves.

So is life that much better now? Yes and no. As I am today, it is much harder for me to define good and bad. Some of the worst chapters in my life have taught me the most. I would not be the person I am had I not been through those trials by fire. So I am reluctant to call experiences wholly bad. That is not to say though that I don’t recognize when things are problematic. I have acquired perspective, but not delusion. On some level, I know that, for instance, that it was wrong for my boss to try and extort me into signing away my professional freedom for three years. But still, I also know that I learned a lot from going through that and it forced me to make a decision that I’d been putting off. So what I have now, that I didn’t as a kid, is some resolve and understanding: I will make the most of even the worst situations because I choose to.

Even with that, anger is greatly diffused, but not completely. I can choose to turn hardship into opportunity, remind myself of the relative ease of my life and accept random happenstance and its messy outcomes – but it's hard not to resent those who deliberately chose to harm you. That they exercised that degree of malice and intent is reprehensible. And it is even harder to stomach when they get off scot-free. Or worse, have actually seemed to benefit from the bad they did. And that’s where faith comes in and takes one further than the limits of their experience and wisdom. In choosing to believe in Islam I could lean on God’s promise of justice and let go.

The Quran says: “We shall set up scales of justice for the Day of Judgement, so that not a soul will be dealt with unjustly in the least, and if there be (no more than) the weight of a mustard seed, We will bring it (to account): and enough are We to take account."

And that completes my separate peace. There is no anger because there is no harm done unless I allow myself to be harmed, as I control access where it truly matters – my mind and my soul. There is no anger because I know things can always be worse but even still they are an opportunity to shine. And there is no anger because in the end, there will be justice and no one will be shortchanged.

Which is why I smile now. When I never did then. No wonder she barely recognized me. :)

Don't hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love. -Leo Buscaglia.

You know how it is when you pick up some exotic disease that comes with some kind of weird symptom like vertigo or numbness in your left pinkie, and you can’t help but kinda play with your newfound inability to stay upright or drink tea poshly? Ok, if that's too much of a stretch, maybe you know what it’s like when you’ve got so bad a cold your voice goes funny but you find yourself enjoying the way you sound and talking/singing that much more?

I’m kinda in that boat right now. My writing is broken. I blame it on my job. Had to cook up a legalese piece on limited shareholder liability in cases of doubtful insolvency yesterday, and before that, some articles on termination rights according to GCC labor laws. Not to mention the reams and reams of economic/stock market/finance/industry gibberish that I have to edit and polish on a daily basis. It’s like when you run Barbie’s head through your Play-Doh food factory and kill it. No more blue spaghetti. Sadness.

Everything I’ve tried to write for the past few weeks has been awful to the point of unintelligible. And YET I find myself wanting to write that much more. It’s kinda fun. I don’t make sense! WHEE! I am boggled by my own crypticality and ham-handed handling of logic, flow and tenses. Also, I am making up words like nobodiesbusiness. If I was my boss right about now, I’d call me into my office for a very firm talking to about the basics of writing and suggest that, you know, perhaps now would be a good time to pursue my childhood dream of becoming a ninja-scientist-autobot.

But instead, I’m happily generating bad wordage. Like Hem’s random numbers. Except that, unlike her numbers that apparently are part of Investment Banking, there’s really no use for the alphabet-soup-run-through-the-blender that I’m making. Except to annoy you all with. Which, haha, is actually a good enough incentive for me nowadays. Cuz I’ve been EVER so nice. And it’s really not in keeping with my rep. I am, the GROUCHY Owl. Who is kind of infamous for being a snarky brat for whom very little is sacred.

I guess I'm just getting the urge to kick up some trouble. I wish I had someone fun in my office to tease. But apparently, when you’re a bossish type person, teasing your underlings is, kind of, sort of, Harassment. Psh. Pansies. And while I do have fun with my own bosses – both of whom thankfully have fairly good senses of humor – what with the recession on and all, I don’t REALLY want their last memory of me to be of me grinning wryly at them as I crack a joke at the company’s expense. As it is, I’ve left Big Boss with the image of my flip-flops – which I’d thoughtlessly chucked off in the middle of the office. And Medium Boss is probably remembering me miming the movement of throwing my box of business cards at the head of one of our more problematic writers. Incidentally, I think I need a new foam bovine. The time has come for MAD COW ATTACK.

So yes, perhaps work isn’t the best place to let off some steam. Cuz I do sort of like getting paid to wake up and show up. Also, they let me pick the brains of important people and travel around for nuttin. As much as I love to tempt my bosses to fire me, I’d not like it all that much if they did. So I’ll be a good girl. For now.

But I am planning plans. Thinking thoughts. You know. The usual Owl madness. Cruising for a bruising. Ready for a new challenge/adventure/endeavor. I HAVE started running again, but after doing a half-marathon, nothing short of a full-on one will suffice for my next trick. Except I don’t have the time right now for that – nor the health. Yet. So I need to do something else. Other than having WAY too many cups of caffeine a day – which I realize probably has something to do with this latest post and the silly grin I’ve had on most of the day.

ZZZZZZZZING!

Watch it yo. Owl is back.

Nice thing about having a life with so much drama in it that, if it weren’t for the lack of twins, murder and murderous twins, it would seem like a day-time soap/dark comedy is: perspective.

Things, of late, have been hairy. And yes, I realize anyone who knows me in the real, or reads this blog with any degree of scrutiny, knows that things are always kinda hirsute round here. Thankfully, only figuratively. Cuz I could NOT be working electrolysis sessions into the mix. Now that would be too much. But yes, that figurative hairiness had not been letting up and I had not been handling it as well as I could. It’d been telling on me for a while and I hadn’t been able to best it.

So I met up with one of my dearest dearest friends the other day, after a hiatus of some two years. This is my beloved Crayon – one of the most generous, wise, humble and funny women I know. If I can be as awesome as she is when I’m her age, I’ll finally consider myself some kind of success. She is one of those truly beautiful people who I’m lucky to call friend. We’d been buddies since I believe she followed Abez home from the grocery store or something years back in Islamabad and even joined us out in the UAE. Sadly she went back home to the UK two years ago and we’d been deprived of her presence until she brought the brood over for a visit last week.

We were hanging out at Abez’s and had reverted back to our traditional roles - me the baker and Crayon the taste-tester. There in the kitchen, despite my conviction to enjoy my friend’s company and not stew over my latest woe, I guess my stress was showing so Crayon asked me what was up. Of course, there are never short answers in my life, and lots of background and history had to be dug up. But as I was telling the story, it hit me almost immediately that THIS is what’s been bothering me? Seriously? This is NOTHING. Shoo, this isn’t a patch of dandruff on the beasts that have dogged me in the past. I couldn’t even bother really to finish relating that angst because I was THAT unimpressed with it. Mid-story, I just wanted to laugh. A few years ago I’d have *killed* for this to qualify as Major Drama in my life. Heck, even six months ago this would have seemed like a welcome break from the regular eviscerations that punctuated my existence. And even those, really, were no big deal. I survived.

And just like that, I decided I was done. That night I prayed for some serenity and guidance, and woke up the next morning calm for the first time in weeks. I was resolved. I had no regrets. Hardship borne with patience and faith is only a good. I could handle this and come out of it stronger. I’d done it before. I’ll do it again.

Thank God for perspective. :)

I don’t have a lot of specific aspirations in life. It’s just a general vibe that I’m aiming for. A certain mojo really. But there are some things that I’d kinda like to do – and this week – I got to check off two of them. Score!

So I travel a lot. Some for the job. Some cuz I’m from two widely-spaced worlds. And some cuz I’m just a gypsy who’s always looking for something she hasn’t found.

As you’d imagine then, with all the miles I’ve clocked, I’ve gotten rather good at packing light. I’m low maintenance to the point of absurd. But still, I always seem to have to check in my bags. Ever since that no liquid madness and the increased security, I just don’t trust myself to not accidentally be carrying one of my many pocket knives or a beyond-the-allowed-amount of some innocuous liquid. Rather than deal with crabby security-types, I just always check my bag – no matter how small it is. But I do it with a sad heart. Because I’ve always wanted to be one of those cool bag-less folks. They just arrive at the airport looking all chilled out and slick, no luggage to wrestle with, no weight limits to worry about. Checking in is a breeze – they just get their boarding pass and wander over to the gate. But what’s EVEN better is when they land – there’s none of that annoying waiting around the luggage carousel. I think I’ve spent half my life standing next to that damned conveyor belt. And no matter what I do, my bag always seems to be the last to come out – preceded of course by dozens of doppelganger bags. Sigh. Which is why I have always aspired to travel baggage-less, but it’s never seems to work out. Even when I’ve fit everything into a cabin-approved carry-on, I end up panicking last minute, worrying that I’ve left explosive hair conditioner in my luggage, and will end up with an unplanned tour of Guantanamo Bay for it. Yes, Travelling While Muslim really is that un-fun.

Until this week. I had another press trip and this one was crazy even by my measure. I was flying out to Kuwait in the morning and coming back in the evening. No need then for anything beyond my purse – which is really just the place where my keys and phone play and hide and seek amidst salt packets and bits of dust. Bet I could do without that too. But still – having just a purse was good enough. It qualifies as carry-on. So imagine my smugness when I got to the check-in gate. When the airline agent asked me if I had a bag to check in, I just smiled and discretely shook my head no. Psh. Me, check in a bag? Travel with… luggage? Never. I have entire wardrobes and summer homes awaiting me in all the place I visit, donchaknow. I only travel economy to keep a low profile. *knowing look* Sorry, got a bit carried away there. But yes, I got my ticket without having to trade a bag for it.

And then, it got interesting. After handing over my card, the rep gave me a sour look and said: “By the way miss, you’re quite late to check in. The boarding gate closes in ten minutes. There’s a good chance you won’t make it. You’ll have to hurry.” Hot damn. This is what I get for taking my sweet time in the morning. I grabbed my boarding card and then became one of THOSE people - Crazy People Who Run Through the Airport To Catch Their Flight. And, don’t look too shabby doing it - I hope. I was so glad I’d worn my flat soft elf boots instead of the usual rigid high-heeled ones and a wide gypsy skirt instead of my many fitted narrow skirts. With my piddly purse over my shoulder and boarding card in hand, I flew through immigration and security, ran down the moving walkways, bounded up escalators and dodged slow-moving travellers and their luggage - with the tails of my headscarf and the folds of my skirt billowing behind me. I made it to my boarding gate in about 7 minutes, sprinting the entire way – only to find out that of course, this is an Arab airline – they don’t REALLY close up shop an hour before boarding. Habibti, that vould be so rrrude. No, they let in stragglers for another HALF hour, giving me time to catch my breath (yes, my stamina is not what it once was) and compose myself.

But now that I’ve accomplished two of my very few goals in life, I don’t know what to do with myself. I may have to aspire higher. Like maybe… getting to work early. Whoa. If I can manage that, I may very well just go *POOF*. I shall have attained space-cadet Nirvana.

Last week, to help me bust loose from my funk, I requested my platonic and same-gendered Sugar Daddy (the roommate) to “Rescue me!” This is what is known as Progress. We damsels in distress not only are being saved by fellow distressed damsels, but we also take initiative on our own saving. Hem very kindly obliged my request and asked what I had in mind. AN ADVENTURE! Because, well, nothing makes a person feel quite so alive as nearly getting dead. That is what adventures entail in my life anyways – creeping to mortality’s edge and peering over. And sometimes, dancing along the line.

What sort of adventure? the lovely obliging Hem asked. Camping. In neighboring Oman. It was the best of both worlds. See Hem has been collecting expensive and massive off-roading books on the region. When you live in a apartment so small a cat cannot be easily swung and are regularly broke, the purchase and keeping of such books implies Serious Intent. And I’ve never actually taken my lazy self to Oman. Going on a trek in Oman would be the perfect two birds with one stone - Hem would finally get to 'camp' and I'd cross the border.

But we’re both busy professional types. Hem works crazy long hours generating random numbers in Excel while I wrestle the recession. By the time we both get home, we seem to be the victims of drive-by lobotomies and cannot be bothered to speak or think, let alone plan. So hence, the trip never got hammered out beyond that initial idea.

I should add though, Hem isn’t REALLY the laissez faire bird-brain I am. She’s actually whip smart and super on the ball and big on Spreadsheets. It’s not that she doesn’t plan – she had just trusted me to do that. Haha. Um. Damn. Planning though, aint my thang. I kind of wander through life with a toothbrush in my purse and my passport in my back pocket and consider that sufficiently prepared for most things. I’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda girl. I regularly cross international borders with no local currency and no clue where I’ll be staying on the other side. I’ve never bought a guide or phrase book. I don’t tend to even know the full names and numbers of the friends I’m meeting up with on the other side. Hey, I’m doing my bit to disprove the atheists – if I’m still alive and relatively whole you KNOW there’s gotta be a God.

But not everyone is so ridiculously blasé, so after a bit of nagging, I finally cracked open the guidebook and came up with a vague idea of where we'd like to go and what we'd like to do. Then I dug out from my shoddy memory a list of ‘things needed when roughing it’ to pick up on our way out. Then I added some niceties (MARSHMALLOWS!), because I realize not everyone is ok with sleeping on the ground, watering the bushes, and living on water and trail mix. Though Hem is wonderfully chill, I didn’t want to force her to mutiny on me after being put on a tree-hugging prisoner’s diet.

Early Friday, after my usual 3 hours of sleep, we awoke and headed off. Our plan was a vague jaunt through Mussandam, with some hiking and touring thrown in before we camped at Sala Alah (Najd Al Khawr).

After hours of peacable driving and car-karoke, we got into The Thick of Things in the mountains of Mussandam. There I learned you should NEVER doubt the driving prowess of the authentic Lahori Kurri. We were aiming for an acacia forest and a small patch of mountainous beach but ended up accidentally on the track to the highest point around – Jebel Aswadh – at 1,407 m. Incidentally, the road to said mountain was not paved, nor was it bordered. It was basically just a gravel path barely two car-lengths wide going up and around the golden rock of Oman at angles that would boggle the mind. Had I been the driver, I would have balked at the first +45 degree hairpin and turned around. But Hem didn’t even hesitate. She expertly got her poshy four-wheeler only-in-name up the progressively scarier turns without so much as a peep while I hung out the window taking pictures and grinning like a lunatic. After what felt like an eternity on that strip of road that humanity forgot, we reached the top. I jumped out and took some more pictures, poked my toes over the edge of the cliff front and watched bits of rock and dirt careen wildly into the maw below. There I had the morbid but useful epiphany of “After a certain point, it doesn’t matter if you fall from 10 meters or 100 meters – you go splat either way.”

At this point, we also realized we’d gone the wrong way. We had been aiming for a beach, and you don’t find an ocean coast among mountain peaks. Yep, we’re clever like that. So we turned around. This time though, we were pros at this mountain driving. We made a lot more exploratory stops and along the way shared the creepy thoughts that had been running through our minds during the ascent. I had been wondering what falling off the edge of the road would feel like, and how many seconds we’d have before we went boom, while Hem was considering the guilt of damaging her car and her roommate.

One of the detours was at this beautiful rock amphitheater where there were naturally formed round pools on progressively lower center ‘stages.’ We were enjoying the stillness and marveling over the near geometric perfection of the rock formations when we heard a shrill yell. Hem called back. More weird hoots and hollering followed. She asked who was out there, and they yipped. Typical. Leave it to us, to find up, in the back-end of the beyond, where only the most insane and well horse-powered can reach, goony boys. We didn’t feel like sticking around and exchanging pleasantries with our mysterious hecklers, so we got back in the car and drove on.

After more downward driving, we got back to the problematic fork in the road that landed us up a mountain, and went the proper way – towards our possible camp destination. Along the way we passed through the acacia forest - a desert valley surrounded by mountains where glorified bonsai trees were battling the elements. I could have probably happily just hung out there for the rest of the trip – wandering through the trees, sleeping in their shade, imagining myself in some fairy landscape. But we still had our other things to see. Next stop was Sala Alah – a tiny patch of beach where the relentless tide had worn a groove into the mountain.

That too involved a bit more of the perilous unpaved windy roads, which we could now scoff at. We got down the mountain to the tiny strip where the land meets the water, weaving between the fishing boats of the locals, and claimed a spot of ground to pitch our tent. We got out of the car, grabbed our gear, threw down a tarp and took a deep breath. GAG. It smelled, in short, awful. Something like a combination of fish, sewage and mud. Neither of us said anything at first – determined as we were to follow the itinerary. But bad smells are a bit like Chinese water torture. They’re not so unbearable at first, but begin to wear you down. Add to that was the unwelcome appearance of some friendly locals. A group of men had set up camp not too far away, and had come over to chat us up. Perhaps they were just being friendly and curious, but asking us if we were staying the night didn’t bode well for that. I may street-race, bike through Bostonian traffic, and report from disaster zones without a thought, but I don’t stick around to put up with unwanted male attention. Especially from four oily fat old men. We enjoyed the view a little while longer, and got back on the road.

We then found our way back towards civilization. We’d seen a nice beach earlier and thought we could set up camp there. But now, so many hours later, we found it full up with folks enjoying the weather. There was a nice mix of local and foreign, family and lone, male and female. No, wait, scratch that. Once again, we were the only two ‘girls’ around. And boy did that show. We weren’t there for five minutes before young men began to congregate. I blame this on Hem’s magnetism. The girl has a smile and a laugh that draws guys like moths to a light. Plus she’s criminally cute. Nearly every time she and I hang out we have hilarious run-ins with the male species. Earlier that day at the border post we had an immigration officer invite himself along with us on our trip, and another apparently find my Urdu so fun he had to repeat what I was saying.

This time, the guys apparently wanted me to take their photos. I had been snapping shots of the sunset, the waves, and Hem, and I guess they felt left out. “Hey Moonlight (Noori), won’t you take my picture!” some kandoora-clad fellows called out. And typically oblivious me, I didn’t catch on and wondered what poor girl was named Moonlight. I peered around for her, and Hem saw me and laughed. “Uh, Owl. They’re talking to you.” I look up and sure enough, three guys were grinning at me, holding a hilarious pose, waiting for me to take their pictures. I like to think I probably played it all cool and just looked away, but chances are I blushed and looked as caught-out as I felt. They weren’t satisfied with making me awkward though, and got in their car and tried again “Come on Noori, just a picture!” Haha, um, sure. So I snapped a few and they drove off. Not sure if the guys who came later and tried to give me their number were the same ones but I have to believe there aren’t THAT many desperate and bored Omani guys wandering the beaches.

We hung out at the beach till dark, and then headed out again to find a less crowded campsite. In the end we picked another beach not too far away, but far less occupied. By this time we were both exhausted and hungry. I could have easily just slept on a mat right there on the beach, under the stars, but Hem said “Tent first, food later.” Turns out though, that the tent was broken, so we spent the next hour MacGyvering it back together in the dark. The solution involved the use of some big rocks, a severed length of elastic, nail-clippers, and a bit of ingenuity. Finally it was up and habitable – provided a big wind didn’t turn us all into a very boxy kite. We could then collapse on the shells and gravel outside at our ‘doorstep’ and eat what tasted like the world’s best use of white-bread and luncheon meat EVER. Nothing quite like real hunger to make the simplest things taste marvelous.

Stomachs full, we lazed a bit, listening to the ocean’s breathing – the tide crashing in, and going out – and tried to figure out some of the constellations. Orion was out in full glory, actually for once looking like The Hunter he’s supposed to be rather than some tripped-out ancient Greek’s version of connect the dots. The rest of the constellations I couldn’t easily name, though that didn’t stop me from trying to cook up my own - all variations of “The Big Splat” and “The Little Splat”. Now drowsy, we cleaned up and bedded down in the tent that promised to ‘fit four’ but was really just big enough for the two of us and our vast collection of electronics – Hem slept with a flashlight, her car keys, camera and purse, while I had my usual bed-mate of my phone. The sound of the waves lulled me to sleep almost immediately. As Hem discovered when she tried to poke me awake to tell me she didn’t think it was safe out there and we should go – I was dead to the world.

At dawn, the cries of seagulls and the ever more intrusive morning light woke us. I had a migraine and Hem had a backache. Haha, so much for being rough and tough. We packed up our camp and headed to the nearby town where we were probably the only visitors the local mosque’s female section had seen in an age. There we washed up, changed, and teased each other about the horrors of ‘tent hair’ – which is like bed-head plus hat-hair with a liberal sprinkling of mountain dust to make it look and feel like plastic. My unruly locks were stuffed back under my headscarf and Hem’s were hidden away in local men’s headgear – much to the bewilderment of those we saw on our early morning departure.

We had a leisurely drive back across Oman, through border control, into the UAE, across Ras Al Khaimah, Ajman, Sharjah, and finally into the now absurdly over-developed seeming Dubai. Finally we were home, having done 450 kilometers in a little over 24 hours – covering forests, mountains, deserts and beaches. So Hem, when we doing this again? Can’t wait!

As per the request of the lovely Zainab – blurker, friend and roaming sufi extraordinaire - I shall write about love. Because despite this blog’s assurances to the contrary, she suspects that beneath my flippant and steely exterior, I may indeed possess a heart. One as elusive and undocumented as the Loch Ness Monster, but a feeling core nonetheless.

Though the Owl of yore would have responded to the question/request with a smart-alleck brush-off – probably mentioning boxed organs under my bed – I’ve lately picked up the disturbing habit of just speaking. What’s on my mind. In my – need I say it - heart. I guess I don’t care any more. Or worry so much. I’ve let go. This is who I am and how it is. So be it.

Yes dear, I have a heart. Which is to say, I love. I’ve always known I do. It’s only some others who doubt it. The periodic interjectors who ask: “are you a robot?” “do you feel nothing?” “if you don’t have a broken heart yet, you’re hopeless.” To which I usually just smile. The speaker is usually young, or adorably myopic and cannot see past their reaches of their own senses. They are a certain way, thus that must be the right way, thus I am wrong for not being like them.

Yet also, I don’t fault them the assessment. Yes, to the observer, I seem to regard most everyone about the same. I dislike very few people, and seem to get along swimmingly with everyone else. To look at my life as a line-graph of emotion, you may see lots of shallow peaks and falls, but no spikes. Perhaps they see me as permanently remote. I am never shaken. But the truth is, I am constantly stirred.

To put it simply Zainab - I love all the time. If you are my friend, I love you. And I count uncountable numbers as friends. I even love people I hardly know. I love their strengths, their works, their foibles. When I see something amazing, I know whoever made that bit of goodness is beautiful. You can’t help but love beauty. And look hard enough, and everyone has something beautiful about them. So if you’re in my orbit, and I’ve given you more than a moment’s glance, chances are, you’re in my heart.

Though I grant, sometimes I cannot hold that glance. We all have good, but sometimes that kernel is sunk deep below the corrosive. You get rather a lot of painful splashbacks when you stand too close. After lots of burns and still no recovery and growth of that seed – all you can do is avert your eyes. Walk away. Because though the good and loveable is there, it costs you so much to bring it into focus, you risk losing yourself to do it.

The very few times in my life I’ve tried to verbalize this in response to the accusation of my apparent emotional failure, I’ve been told I simply do not know the meaning of love. I’m being far too lax in setting the defining constraints of the term. But I know love. It is trust. It is esteem. It’s knowing you’d rather have their welfare than your own. It’s being able to give without worrying about receiving – just because you can. It is patience and mercy. It may come with additional flavours and be of greater or lesser degrees, depending on the person you feel it for, but it has that same core inexplicable affection. It is love. And I’m not insane.

So yes, while loving is always a blessing, to do so easily is also a bit of a curse. Because one does sometimes still foolishly dive to retrieve that good, against their own self preservation. And in loving so many, spread over so far, you cannot help but feel regular pangs of loss because you cannot keep them near. To lose them is not just to lose a friend but to lose a love. And that always hurts. When you give someone real estate in your heart, they always leave a hole when they’re gone.

But worst of all – and perhaps the reason for the label of unreachable – is that when one loves so freely, with no expectation, and often based on comparatively so little, perhaps it fills that void that people tend to reserve for Love with the capital L. I have not yet been able to make that leap of love – going beyond my usual compassion, adoration and respect for the many I love – to being In Love. And then sometimes, like my sceptical questioners, I too worry that I am simply unable. But I hope though it's just that it hasn't been the right thing to do - yet.

And that, Zainab my love, is my elusive heart, found, held and bled over electronic paper. Have I finally explained myself?

Wow. Um. I don’t update in less than a week and I get petitions, emails and fist shaking in my direction. Ya’ll are obviously spoiled. I mean, SOME bloggers (*cough*... YAZZO…*cough*), don’t update for months, and that’s fine. I bet she doesn’t get nagged or threatened. No no, we all just happily keep on visiting and sighing over her last brilliance and wait patiently like kids on Christmas to get the next update. But, me, I get issued orders. Thanks guys. ;)

Problem is, the stuff that occupies my headspace is lately, pretty deadly dull. Like the recession. Dude, as a business journalist, that is all I eat, breathe, and sleep these days. And it’s not just remote reporting – the downturn is hitting my own sector pretty hard. We’ve had layoffs and our mag is at 50% of revenue. All over the office you see little huddled groups of coworkers sharing their woes, comparing their further slimmed down publications, doing a lot of clucking and calculating – which one of us will go next? Fun times.

Then there’s my damned health. Still not good. I feel a little better, but I wonder how much of that is my own stubborn insistence. I am WELL DAMINT! And the rest of the minute improvement comes from force-feeding. I have become Dubai’s lost lonely kitty that everyone keeps setting out saucers of milk for and offering to give a nice scratch behind the ears. Btw, have I ever mentioned how much I hate being fussed over? *scowl*

And then there’s loads of personal crap/drama. Which is frankly, just kinda insane. Even by my standards. Somehow, at this stage in my life, my “number” has finally come up, to put it vaguely. And knowing me, when it rains, it pours. I am – metaphorically – soaked. Which is – to quote Forrest Gump – all I’m gonna say about dat.

Ah me. It is all fodder for the laugh factor anyways. As long as I can joke about it, it’s can’t be all bad.

I am thinking though, that I really don’t like the way this blog has been going. I used to do something akin to satire on here, back in ye olden days (circa 2006). You know, making fun of the world at large, not just embarrassing myself in public. Sometimes even, I’d write about, you know, real issues – religion, politics, global warming. Ok, I never wrote about global warming. But I could! *ditzy grin* So I am thinking of maybe giving myself a blogging assignment. You know, like “Veird things other people do in public that they shouldn’t. Ever. Please. STOP!” I could even take on… carbon trading. On lean days anyways. Where hopefully you all won’t notice that I’m plagiarizing my job stuff.

But in order to do that, I think I have to pay attention. To life. Cuz lately, I’m not. I’m kind of wandering around with half my brain shut off, my eyes partly closed and also my face turned towards the sky. Which, btw, probably explains why I’m constantly bruised/sprained/bleeding. Not sure why I’m doing it. Could be laziness or a deliberate and brilliant attempt at my subconscious to, I dunno, take over the world by not trying. You know, kinda like if you don’t build it, it will happen just to spite you. Likely though, it’s the laziness. Or some kinda weird neurotic self defence mechanism – cuz I’m self-aware like that.

So I shall attempt to be more dutiful and not continue with my out-of-focus spaciness. And you, dear readers, will suggest topics I should take on and also, do something to up the comments. They seem to be stuck at 13 max. Come on, YOU CAN DO IT!