Merigoesaround

Tattooed in his fingers, letter by letter, dream after dream. Seen at Marais housewarming party. This is Paris!

...and the 5th of February arrives I wanted to list the good news that fill my life today. Happiness overload. I am not sure if I'll have time in 15 min. First, BH became a civil servant for yet another bureaucracy. One that he has already tasted, the European Union. I don't know anybody more European than BH, a man with refined transatlantic culture though. Sometimes he would say things like "we are Europe", "Europe is us". No brainwashing needed. I think this job might be good for him. Europe is fine but I still prefer Washington DC 100 times better than Brussels. I can't help it. There is something about the US that not even Belgium waffle can beat. Well, maybe French croissant can. So my future household breadwinner has found a job for life, something that in current economic times seems like a sensible choice. This is good because we won't have to worry for our kids' education ever again but it is bad if the boredom of bureaucracies eats him...

There are few times when you leave the office feeling that you are part of history. Today I felt that way. Just in front of our building, Egyptian demonstrators peacefully chanted for change in their country. Their warm voices, the extreme cold, the Eiffel tower presiding the scene...a romantic view of freedom that almost made me drop a tear. A liberating one. I took pictures with my improvised journalistic weapon, my cell, felt like a war reporter for a minute, found my lips mimicking theirs, chanting in Arabic with perfect gutturality. I wondered what kind of journalist would I be, probably not a neutral one, my emotional delivery from Avenue d'Iena would not make it to BBC. As I write these lines confrontation is taking place at Liberation Square in Cairo. But when dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right. - Victor Hugo (via my friend Alex).

It is with pain in my lower back, swollen left knee and random thigh discomfort that I happily announce having completed my first semi-marathon. Ever. 21km (13 miles) of joy. Well, maybe 19 of joy and 2 of impatience and monolithic legs. Only some months ago I would write to my good friend Dimi seeking running inspiration. Couldn't go beyond 5k. After that my heart would hurt, my breathing get messy and my toes painful. BH and Dimi convinced me that I could do it and since that's the way I function, challenge after challenge, persevering towards personal improvement I have managed to check off my 2011 resolutions' list a big one, and we are still in January. If I keep this progress I will need another list by August! (*) note that this if the first time in a long, very long time, that you can see splendorous BH. Thanks to him for running 2.29' by my side. The race of life is ahead of us.

What would I do without you ramen noddles? 3 minutes, boiled water, dinner is ready. What would I do without the Chinese place that closes after 10pm? Or the eventual samosa that I eat at the local Indian? How would I live without generous amounts of Danone yoghurt, liters of milk and kilos of cereal? And cheese, what to say about the importance of cheese in my gastronomic life. Bread, tears in my eyes, thinking about crunchy, fresh bread, the baguette magic effect of life. BH is convinced that I know how to cook but I haven't yet made it beyond the cheese and salmon omelet or the 'whatever-you-have-in-the-fridge' pasta. How many of you feel 100% identified with what I am saying!?

Some weeks ago I went to Barcelona for a weekend. Home. Being a short flight from Paris I do it every two months or so. Going back is always a similar bitter sweet moment. No matter how often I go, no matter for how long. You belong to there but in a way you don't belong to anywhere. Your closest friends are always welcoming, the ones that really know you, that forgive you for not writing to them, for not spending time with their kids or simply having coffee and chatting about life, love and sex (yes, this is what girls talk about when together in a group and 80% of them have had the same partner for more than 5 years). Their generosity amazes me every time. Their repertoire of sexual tips too. Being back one irremediably wonders about the conterfactuals of life: how would have life been hadn't the 'luggage girl lifestyle' started? how would have been marrying that first boyfriend that trashed your heart? how would have been spending more time closer to your parents? f...

Yesterday night I saw a short (free) movie . Go to 'ver pelicula'. Subtitled in English. and today the movie became reality. Because there are things you never forget. HT to Juliana. Problems should be that, children's games.

This year ends with words that almost rhyme. Isolation, confusion, and emotion. All of the good kind. On beautiful isolation . The dream of every woman: to travel to an exotic remote spot with 9 hot French kitesurfers. Me, the women. Them, the boys. Dakhla in the Western Sahara, the spot. This place is peacefully located in the middle of nowhere. A land that hides natural resources deep down the desert-like surface. A land ruled by Spaniards some time ago and decolonized the Spanish way, sloppily. Boyfriend Husband (BH) has strongly discouraged me from asking any local about the conflict in the Western Sahara. The journalistic me dreams of writing a small article on it and publishing it in El Pais. BH says is dangerous and Moroccans do not like to talk about it. The truth is that from our kitesurfy bungalow all I see is a marvelous sunset, gentle Moroccans (Saharaui or not) and wonderful international families making the most of this last day of 2010. If you wonder about the 9 French,...

I want a metro without pickpockets, and you? One more pickpocket incident in Line 9 of the Parisian metro and I will start a public campaign. I already designed the logo, I just need to make stickers and fill windows, chairs and doors in the metro with them. I had never ever felt so insecure taking public transport than in Paris. Yesterday, while seated in the metro I was surprised with the drivers' message out loud "Ladies and Gentlemen there is a pickpocket in the last wagon, watch out your bags".

I tried to refuse her love. I tried not to take any of her proposals for fun, for eating out, enjoying the sun, the coffees in charming bistros. I really tried to dislike her. And I did not succeed. I love Paris. La ville. Beauty is in Paris.

Read title with David Bowie's famous song... chaaa cchhh chhha cchaannges in mind. I feel changes. I have this supernatural power, according to me, to foresee the future. This belief has been strengthened after I foresaw two pickpocket attacks in the metro. I knew something would happen, I changed seats and moved away from the suspects, when the metro stopped few seconds latter they violently stole the iphone of a girl while she was talking in one case and run away with a bag in another one. I can read bad people as much as I can recognize good human fiber. My fiber tells me that changes will come soon into my life. I have already started missing Paris while still having an address, a telephone account and a job here. Very importantly, I have 10 sessions of vinyasa yoga that I finally accept will go unused since that type of yoga, despite forcing myself to like it, does not do good to my lower back. I miss my grey mini sofa, an enormous Burkina Faso mask standing in my living that...

Reporting live from Manila. I love the feeling of crossing the world in a plane. Even when the sleeping pill overdosed-Scottish middle age gigantic man sitting in front starts delirating and suddenly raises his skirt and decides to urinate in the middle of the plane. I thought we were landing in Mongolia. The face of the Dutch stewardess trying to reanimate the guy first, and making him feel ashamed second went from Munch's The Scream to Hitler in a matter of seconds. Human craziness apart, I love the feeling of flying through borders. Overflying Poland brought me back to 2001 and those days boyfriend husband and I were young and that first time we kissed in the garden of the Warsaw school where we spent a year of fun. The flight through Russian small villages (or at least they looked small from up there) flew me back to communism. In Kazakhstan I felt I was visiting a new country, even if all I could see was the vast blackness of unknown land. China, Mongolia, India...I don't ...

Inspiration comes when it comes. I know I am disappointing some of you and the snowball of blogless days becomes bigger and bigger, heavier and heavier on my shoulders. I'll be back very soon, I am in the process of planning what's next in life and putting thoughts in order. As boyfriend husband would say, there is no correct path, just yours. And I agree. He is always right.

This American proverb hanging from a kitchen fluorescent light bulb in a friend's house might be the best driver to live happily ever after. Don't blame yourself, don't blame others, things happen for a reason. All things. You didn't get that job. It had to happen. You found prince charming. It had to happen. You haven't yet. It will happen when it has to. This weekend we spent time with a new guru, a person I rediscovered, the eclectic kind of guru. We hit the Swiss slopes close to where he lives, we hit them so hard that boyfriend husband damaged his elbow badly. We ate immense amounts of cheese, rolled in the snow after sauna, inhaled as much fresh air as possible, and rediscovered the streets and the cafes of Geneva, a tiny elegant welcoming town that according to Borges is a place favoring happy lives . I tell Borges that the best place to visit is home. This weekend I saw small and big pictures of life.

Two nights ago a sophisticated, extremely cultured, lovely person who might become a good friend revealed to me a secret probably too secret for sharing with an stranger: "when I make love in a language that is not my native one it is never the same", he said. The funny part is that my potential friend is trilingual. So, or he gets lots of pleasure, or he is lost in translation. Maybe I am too. This blog should be about development economics and not dictionary ergonomics. But, multilingual couples of the world, speak out...I am listening.

My friend the ex-corporate-guy-now-converted-into-photographer is really good at his new occupation. He dreamt once of becoming a photographer, of expressing right out of his gut what he had inside after life gave him a kick off straight into his heart. He is succeeding. And recovering. He is so good that I want a picture with him very soon, this guy has a lot inside. Beyond all this free February love, let me explain his occupation. He takes pictures of pain. Not a very good way to relieve his, indeed. He does development porn, an irreverently ironic term that does not give credit to so many dozens of photographers around the world telling us what is beyond the Galerie Lafayette in Paris. So my friend the photographer is as good as having one of his pictures shown in the huge publicity banners of the Parisian metro. It was almost like a dream. I took line 9, my daily commute...and when I got to "Bonne Nouvelle" (literally, Good News) metro stop there she was, one of his Viet...

When I had too much food for thought at work. Courtesy of US colleagues.

This morning I met Lady Pigeon. I was sitting in the metro, half slept and hungry. My mornings are always in a rush. Always. I am fascinated by those who manage to have full continental breakfasts, with warm toasts and everything, at home before going to work. Seldom are the days I remember to grab a cereal bar. Sooo, hungry, sleepy me sat in front of a lady who was talking to her closed bag. I sometimes talk to my open bag...specially when I psychologically lose my purse inside. Girls' bags are artifacts to make you suffer. But there she was, Lady Pigeon talking to her closed bag. "Shhh. Don't move". She whispered. "Shhh. Behave". And suddenly she unzipped her leather interlocutor and a fat, grey sparrow animated my commuting today.