Merigoesaround

Today is one of those days when I remind myself how important it is to appreciate small things in life. Like a simple unexpected smile. A new lady moved to the studio upstairs some weeks ago. She is typically French. Beautiful, slim, smokey-eyed, blue marine cape-wearing a la Kooples. She wears high heels ALL the time in her 20sqm studio, but other than that she seems very sweet. Others seem to think the same, specially whoever left this rose in her mailbox. From afar, I thought it was mine. Yes! But it was not. Smile 1. I left our building thinking that sometimes a rose might be more important than a diamond. Only sometimes Boyfriend Husband (BH). Smile 2. Here, live from the building of love, another neighbor spreads happiness in the building with balloons in his front-door. A part of me will miss the 108 of Rue Amelot but the excitement of moving to Dakar just provoked Smile 3 in this rainy Parisian Saturday afternoon.

With boyfriend husband now living with me the truth is that I have lots of extra time. Far seem the days we communicated via long, long, often bad quality, skype calls. Only that gives me a net gain of 1 hour per day. In my skype-free hour I should try to do more things by myself and stop watching what he does while complaining about the fact that he does nothing but read geeky websites, learn how to edit videos online or read too many clever articles on international politics. He is probably doing what he needs to do anyway...but what am I going to do in my extra hour? I am going to blog. Tremble, I am back with super-blogger powers. Tomorrow, national election in Spain.

This happens: Any domestic order or suggestion you give ("we should buy some fruit") is magnified by 10. Boyfriend husband thinks we are already a family of seven with in-laws living at home and all crazy about devouring fruit. Note that the photo does not clearly show an all time ginormous melon hiding under the apples, oranges and bananas... When women fill the fridge with fruit. This happens: Result: smoothie time every day! I am convinced boyfriend husband bought that much because he loves, looooves, the noise of the blender mashing all of those pieces of fruit. Brrrrreeeerrrrreeeeee!

My mum called. With a feeble voice, like trying not to bother me, she asked: "Listen, I need to ask you something. It is not super crucial but I'd like to know". Fearing the typical questions once again, "When are you marrying? Having kids? Settling down somewhere?". I said, okey, mum, "Shoot it". I was wrong. No usual questions. She wanted to know what to do with a box full of white, yellow, black cables I have in the "all meri's stuff" closet full of useless things that I have at home in Barcelona. Any expat reading me knows what I am talking about. Thaaat closet. "I am thinking about giving them away to some African immigrants that pass by the building from time to time. They peel the plastic off and sell it, apparently they get good money". She said. The image of my now useless old computer power cable, unwrapped palm pilot headphones or first external laptop CD drive being destroyed unsettled me. And then, possessed, my eye...

One can scream out of joy, out of pain, out of fear. In 24 hours I heard all those screams. Marrakesh is a magic place for many reasons. For me it represents not only where boyfriend husband works and lives but also a place where we will age, enjoying the house we just bought and are rebuilding to make it our little oriental jewel. Marrakesh was chaos the other night, for one very mundane reason: football. Barcelona was playing against Madrid and Messi scored in the very moment that the evening call for prayer started, a mix of religious joy from the thousands of Barcelona supporters in Marrakesh erupted and elevated my favorite team to Koranic levels. And then I went to bed. I took a plane and before landing in Paris the joy had dissipated. Terrorists had attacked Marrakesh's Cafe Argana, killing 17 people. We later learned that it was not Al-Qaida as we first thought but an Islamist radical from Safi who learned how to make bombs via internet. And the call for prayer was not joy ...

Lately I run. I hate it, I love it, I hate it, I love it. I hoooote it! I might have found a good way to travel, do sports, eat as much pasta as I want, and meet friends via semi-marathons. This weekend I was in Marseille. Ooooh Marseille. There I met my friend Diego , who is like Marseille and the pasta he and Madame Zacci cooked for me. Structurally interesting and tasteful, with a big creative heart, fresh like the mussels you buy in the V ieux Port and a mix of cultures. Where do I run next?

I have spent very Catalan weekends lately. These were not in Barcelona, but in Paris. Coincidentally, I spent a very French weekend in Barcelona, where a bunch of good friends invaded our small house there. These swaps of languages, places and old and new faces might be enriching from a learning perspective but confusing for my emotional inner self. I am worried my kids will not know where they come from. And don't give me the line of enrichment and globalization, I don't take it. At least not today. Anybody with symptoms of feeling from anywhere?

in facebook format. There was something about keeping my love status in facebook unknown that I really liked. But after over nine years with Boyfriend Husband I decided to declare my virtual love to him and changed my status from blank to 'in a relationship'. And it felt good. Very indeed. And then in a totally unrelated thread my sister wrote to me "Meri, who is going to be your facebook friend number 1000". "I am going to invest in keeping my 999", I said to her. But suddenly my dear ex boss (this is no joke) sent a request for friendship. I am still pondering if I will pass the 999 mark. He will wait for the 1999 mark if necessary, my boss has said. Hahaha. So, in less than a minute and without leaving my sofa, I declared my love to my world, I reflected about true friendship and suddenly passed from single to virtually engaged for life. And it felt good.

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.