Yalla, Ciao, Bye!

Well Pookie is off to Moscow. I'm kind of worried he's going to return with some PhD physicist ice dancer -tuned- gay tour guide, but since I know first-hand what being in a relationship with a traditional Russian man is like, we'll just wish him luck ;p

No, joking aside (since I know you all follow his life just as much as you do mine!) he has just put his home on the market in NYC and is hammering out a lot of tough decisions about where he will be next and what he will be doing (the "with whom?" questions obviously needs to be answered AFTER the where and what), and I think this trip will be really good for him...plus Russian art is fantastic, and it's such a historically-interesting place.
He is spending the next two days in Amsterdam en route, and I actually planned an intercept trip that would have me there at 10PM tonight and in the Swisshotel (only $130/night!) and I could even visit Den Haag (former stomping ground of Hawk Barbie!) after he continued on to Moscow for $50 roundtrip on the train, but I think he needs his space. I don't mean to sound Panglossian about it, but I think that it will all end up for the best, and I think that when you really love someone, you stop asking yourself (except for certain rare moments of need) "where do I fit in" and focus more on how their lives are going and whether or not they are happy. I certainly see this with my mother, as well as my best friends -- Curie and Juicy and Barbie and Desi are not normally sitting around feeling sorry for themselves because I'm not with them, they are thinking about my life and how they can better support me, and that's what love really is.

Or...........love can be different....Or at least lovin' can lol --> Now, it would not be a blogosphere exaggeration to say that my sex life is about as boring as the Virgin Mary's (that should be my new screen name!), but in an interesting pre-development (meaning: it hasn't developed into anything and probably won't, because I'm *happy* to be the Virgin Mary...except I'd spell it "Marie" since I think it looks better), I was at dinner a few nights ago -- the Hard Rock night actually -- and as it turns out, I was noticed...and not just by Bin Laden and his body guards!

A friend of mine who we will call Leopold (because his real life name is seriously THAT "my parents are historical Egyptian elites and named me after a random Belgian king because that's what rich people, especially ones who do not want their Coptic son named 'Mohammed' used to do" -- French-speaking family etc.) who was our dinner companion with Lord of the Dance, called me today to tell me that we were spotted at the restaurant by a friend of his. To toot my own horn, this is actually the second time in the past 4 months (actually that sounds really sad, now that I think about it) that I've been spotted and later hunted down at a restaurant, but anyway, this guy called Leopold and told him that he wanted to know me (we all know what THAT means) and asked for my number. Leopold called to ask for permission, and the conversation went something like this:

VC: Hello? Leopold? I'm brushing my teeth.

L: Don't tell someone that. Would you say that you are wiping your ass? You are expected to be beautiful and shining with no effort.

VC: Saying I'm wiping my ass and brushing my teeth are two totally different things. Oral hygiene is something that people really value morally. Besides, what are you, a Victorian Woman? [I wanted to tell him about this poem called "Cecilia" that I read as a senior in high school that pokes fun at the dark underbelly of Victorian beauty, talking about a woman in her toilet preparing to go out, and her ear wax, and her bugers, and then, at the end, the disgusting revelation: "Cecilia, Cecilia, Cecilia shits!" -- but I didn't think he'd appreciate the anecdote, as we aren't on that kind of high school anecdotal basis with each other]

{fastforward through him telling me that the other night someone saw us and that's why he's calling, and me saying that it couldn't have been me and that it was either LoTD or the slutty American who was stripping for the Gulfis *or* he's passing me on to someone and making up a story to make it sound "social" and therefore legitimate}

L: He's a GREAT guy. Very intelligent, very very very good background. Upper upper middle class.

VC {chuckling, because in Egypt you wouldn't, especially if you are from a family like Leopold's, consider anyone middle class to be from a good background -- but his value set has changed since his family moved to San Diego, he saw a country like the US with a real middle class, combined with the fact that he has slept with so many REALLY ghetto guys that he is able to recognize shades of grey between the street and the elite}: Ok, so he's married, right?

L: Yeah he's married. But you like that.

VC: I DO NOT LIKE THAT! I like *older* guys, and here they all happen to be married, but that's why I can't be with anyone!

L: You can't expect people to change. He drives a BMW.

VC: You said it's impolite to talk about BMs over the phone *laughing*

L {silence -- puzzled -- a little dim, at least so far I think so, but not because he's ACTUALLY dim, just because here most lamps only handle 60 watt bulbs, and so 100 watt bulbs tend to tone it down a bit so they can be screwed in somewhere ... YOU figure the analogy out! ... and no, Desi, it's not about sex}: So, I will have him call you. He's a really great guy.

VC: Then why aren't YOU with him, Leo?

L: He's too much for me.

VC: What does that mean?

{repeat times 3 as I get nowhere trying to figure out what Leopold means by that and he doesn't tell me, then finally...}

L: He was too much for me sexually.

{DEAD SILENCE. My shock is best demonstrated by fastforwarding to a call I made later to the friend whose auction I met Leopold at, who responded to my relaying of the conversation with: "HE SAID HE WAS TOO MUCH FOR HIM SEXUALLY? LEOPOLD, THE BLACK HOLE OF HUMAN SEXUALITY FROM WHICH NOT EVEN LIGHT CAN ESCAPE?" So you can see that most people who know Leopold would find the statement extremely shocking}

VC *stammering*: Um, well. Um. You know I'm not so into hookups.

{fastforward through Leo then making the "and he's a really good friend to" approach, which eventually won, and I agreed to have my number passed on}

Mr. Sexual BMW called when I was washing my face, and I jokingly told him that I couldn't pick up when he called originally because I was washing my face, but don't tell Leopold otherwise I won't be invited to the ball. Mr. SBMW *got the joke* with little explanation, and was really nice on the phone. Unfortunately (and predictably) he was not really my type -- meaning: he made reference to the sheep he's slaughtering in the AM as part of the three day Muslim feast which begins tomorrow (which is why you have CNN obsessing over every step of hajj)...maybe I'm weird, but when someone says: "I'd love to see you tomorrow, but I have to slaughter a sheep for my wife," it kinda ruins it...BMW or not!

So the sheep will be slaughtered for the beginning of 3id (remember when I taught you about that letter earlier in the blog? "3ayn"?), and I've already gone downstairs to the bowaab to make it VERY clear to him that I don't want anyone in the building wandering up to the expansive roof (where my little cottage is) to slaughter their sheep. I was in Europe last year when they did this (I think?), but I've heard that there is literally blood on the streets, here. I guess when you have 16 story buildings with 70 families and EVERY ONE slaughters a sheep (since unfortunately, in a neighbourhood like this, everyone can afford to), it can't ALL be done discretely in the stairwell of the flat (where my old roommate told me they'd done it in our building the year before).

OH MY GOD I ALMOST FORGOT TO EXPLAIN THE TITLE OF THE BLOG!

It's what Mr. SBMW said to me when he said goodbye, which is to basically say "bye" in Egyptian slang, global Italian, and English. Middle class (since we're using the term lol) Egyptians usually say "yalla bye," which always throws me off, because "yalla" is also like "let's go" like "come on," so I always feel like they are asking me to go somewhere and then hanging up. "Yalla" really means, kind of: "Keep the momentum of whatever we were talking about and executing it" so it can mean "continue with our discussion of leaving and actually GO somewhere" or: "continue with the winding down of the conversation and say goodbye." The "bye" is also more of a deep, "mbye" (the mmm is actually almost hummed at the beginning) and I'm starting to say it this way by accident! I thought that "yalla, ciao, bye!" was just excessive, though. Who knows if he's too much sexually, but his adieus are certainly way overboard.

VC

PS: I can hear sheep "baa"-ing from my flat :( Tomorrow will be awful.