Lay down on the mat and count to three

Well it's been an interesting few days, if only for the fact that I've been busier than ever and not especially pleased about it. Now, before you beat me over the head with your trusty work ethic, puritan or otherwise, know that this problem isn't ultimately one of quantity but rather one of quality.

First of all, those who know me will recognize that I'm an unlikely candidate for producing matter of fact coverage on celebrity hair styles. I thought I had clearance to write up a slightly bemused examination of why one might be a committed barber shop or salon patron, but no dice. This angle was enjoyable because I got to make reference to The Godfather and an early Howard Hawk's gangster flick, as a matter of setting the scene. Eventually I was disabused of this approach by the editorial powers that be, and forced to write about David Beckham's faux hawk. It was, dear friends, a soul destroying defeat, and I've been scrubbing the single digit I use for typing obsessively ever since, futilely trying to get the dirty off.

I had hoped to ease into the holiday this week, but have had my deadline pushed forward fairly abruptly at Freehold Weekly (the UAE's premier wrestling journal) and now find myself straining to form the requisite number of sentences by close of business. You may be wondering why I'm posting here then, but in doing so you would be betraying your own managerial tendencies, which, really shouldn't be spoken of in public, or private. I subscribe to sufficiency instead, if I can meet my deadline then I've passed the test, everything other than actual typing (with my single aching finger) constitutes a lunch break. Soon, I'm hoping to take a week long lunch break-- I wonder what I'll eat?

These small setbacks aren't so small when you're living 8000 miles from home, although this is a good time to mention that our many ex-pat and local friends here in Dubai are a great comfort, and have made much effort to include us in their holiday plans. Still, I'm afraid I'm mostly lacking any holiday spirit and currently find Dubai a place to be endured more than enjoyed. I miss Oakland, and find it difficult to trust a city that favors cinderblock dormitories and slave wages over free range homeless people with their festive hats and carts full of liberated recyclables. 

I suppose I'm making the point that both places have their share of problems, yet somehow one's own domestic troubles (in the municipal sense) seem much less menacing than those of a strange land that is overtaken every four hours or so by the eery atonal yodeling of call to prayer. I cannot, at this point, really ever imagine feeling completely at home here, and that's probably OK. Please don't think less of me, I have always been a Cancerian creature of comfort. Yet, whenever I travel I have the sense that life remains essentially unchanged almost everywhere you go, which isn't to say that different corners of the world don't experience an undue share of suffering, but that the fundamental rituals of being alive each day remain surprisingly similar. I suppose it's those relatively small differences that make us who we are, meaning that if you talk fancy and like your baked beans savory you then must be from the UK, while someone like me prefers sweetened baked beans and knows that soccer is visually inferior to basketball. So from my personal viewpoint, Beckham and his crap TV show, faux hawk, and pug nosed bride, can all go pound sand.