Forever Tainted

“Skip is MIA,” He says to me on the phone, “Perhaps tomorrow I’ll see him and I’m sure he’ll give you a call.”

Skip is my brother’s father. He’s the man who raised me from the time I was 2, until I turned 12 or 13. He is an alcoholic, and that’s an understatement. If it’s there, Skip is willing to take it, whether it’s a drink, a pill, a needle, or a pipe. In his mid fifties, he’s already had a number of strokes and most recently there was a black, potentially cancerous spot found on his lung. None of it changes him. And under it all, the man has a heart of gold. He spent the majority of my first few months back here, apologizing and asking me for forgiveness for the childhood he allowed me to have. I had forgiven him before he even asked.

So it came as a shock that when the boy Skip initially introduced me to, threw me out so suddenly, Skip took his side over mine; refusing to talk to me. I literally told Skip to fuck right off and swore he wouldn’t hear from me until he was willing to offer an apology. Last week he mentioned me to a few friends. He said he’d tried to call but I’d changed my number, and asked them to have me call him. I tried, three times with no response.

So yesterday I wasn’t shocked to hear he was missing. It’s not abnormal for Skip to go missing for a few days in a row. I was shocked after that call when I spoke to my father and he said he’d seen my mom pissed drunk before noon, sitting outside the house with some guy and a case of beer. The guy he described could have been none other than Skip himself. Looks like my mom’s taking a step back more than 15 years in time. Just when you think things can’t get worse, there seems to be away.

Don’t get me wrong, I love both Skip and my mom. I hate the idea of them getting back together. My mom has been so much better than this for so many years it hurts to see her heading right back there now.

Other than this, life seems to be moving smoothly for me. I got myself a kitten and named him TwoSix. He’s a pain in the ass, but I love him just the same. It’s getting fucking cold here, and it’ll be nice for me to come home after work to warm house with a little one waiting for me. I have a second cat on the way. My niece’s cat had kittens a while back, and I’d already claimed mine when I took in TwoSix from some strange man standing outside the supermarket, threatening to leave him on the streets if I didn’t take him home. Soon, I’ll have a happy little family in my doll house.

May you all have a wonderful Eid.

I woke up this morning feeling down. It’s the first time I’ve felt like this since I got here and I’m not really sure what to make of it. I’ve worn myself these last few weeks, in particular, these last few days have been rough. Not only did I start working full 8 hour shifts, but I stupidly pulled an all-nighter on the first of my nights off, with a Breast Cancer Garage Sale Benefit to take part in the following morning. I managed through that, selling my jewellery with a smile on my face; the proceeds of which made up for a large portion of the charitable profits. That evening I had a house guest come and he only left yesterday morning as I was off to work at 6am.

Last night was the first full nights’ sleep I’ve had for about 4 days. I woke up this morning without an alarm, and I sit now with my coffee listening to the children giggle, as they walk by on their way to school. The sun is shining and the air is crisp. I’ve taken my vitamins, and I don’t work until 3pm this afternoon so I have ample time to clean my house and get a few odds and ends done. I have no real reason for feeling as crappy as I do.

My father is planning on coming out here for a visit soon. He and my mother are still in the process of separating, though my mother has once again taken a spin for the worst. She had taken a minimum wage job at some dollar store only to lose it with her first paycheque – with money for alcohol, who wants to go to work? From what I understand her lawyer is on the verge of dropping her since, who the hell can represent a crazy person who is incoherent enough when she’s strait, when she’s perpetually drunk? I’m so tired of the whole situation and I wish it would all just go back to the way it was in Dubai, when my mom was normal and my parents got along brilliantly. It’s heartbreaking really.

I have little other than that to share right now. Perhaps as the day moves on, I’ll start to feel a little better, since really there’s nothing stopping me excepting me.

I was woken last night just after 1am to the sound a train thundering through my yard. The tracks are just a few feet beyond my fence, and every time the train goes by my whole house shakes, like a mini earthquake interrupted only by the sound of the trains whistle blowing. It sucks. My first few nights here the last train on the day seemed to go by at 9.40pm – which totally isn’t a problem. But for two days now they have been creeping up into the wee hours of the morning. The night before last, it was 11.30, and last night quarter past 1. If a train goes by at 3am tonight, I think I’m going to wake up crying.

But seeing how the time of the train is my only real stress around here so far, I really shouldn’t complain. I’ve moved into my own place. It’s a dollhouse. Actually, as the landlord explained, she initially built it for her children as a playhouse but accidently built it too big for that. She then decided to add a bathroom and half kitchen and rent it out. It’s a tiny little cabin with a loft upstairs. It’s perfect for the little girl that I am, and will be even better when I get my python back and keep him as the guard-pet!

Life is treating me real well. I haven’t had a lot of time for the net lately, thus the lack of posts or entertaining stories shared. I would like to wish all a Happy Ramadhan, forgive me for being late.

It was just before midnight when I snuck out the front door for a cigarette. Giddily talking on the phone I obliviously sat in the chair just next to the small garden and listened to the pouring rain in the background. “If I get eaten by a bear I’m blaming you,” I told him. If he hadn’t have called, I’d have still been snuggled up in my bed, a cigarette the furthest thing from my mind. To my left I heard rummaging, “There’s a coon, bear or cougar in the neighbour’s garage. I can hear him thumping around the garbage bins in there.” In the pitch of the night, I couldn’t see a thing beyond the car port just 15 feet away. As the thumping and rummaging continued, I stood starting to worry about what unseen creature was so close to me going about his business. Stretching my eyes as far as they could go, I peered into the darkness. After a few moments of silence my nerves got the best of me. I crushed my full cigarette in the garden and stepped back into the door frame of the house, one hand on the door ready to close in a moment’s notice.

Within seconds a black bear appeared from behind a car. “There’s a bear! Oh my god, there’s a bear and it’s the first time I have seen one this close up,” I whispered in a hurried voice into the phone. He must have weighed just 350 or so pounds. He was a little bear, the size I like to think of as a teenager. In his mouth he carried a small sandwich bag. The neighbours must have left the bear lock on their garbage undone. As I stood in the doorway he casually sauntered across our yard, not 6 feet away from me, stopping only next to the tiny tree in the yard to our right. He sat down with his prize and pawed at it for a while. Deciding it wasn’t what he wanted or devouring the contents, he picked himself up and this time walked back to his treasure chest of goods. He made his way back into the black of the garage and disappeared for a moment before the thumping and rummaging started again. Something spooked him, and he dashed out of the black and up behind my parked car, proving how quick he could be if needed.

With a bear that spooked and that close I decided it best to go into the house, closing the door behind me. I made my way to the balcony on the second floor where I watched as another neighbour switched on her balcony light and shot a flashlight through the streets. “He’s in Mike’s yard,” I shouted. Once she spotted him, she let me know and started calling her kitty. I watched the bear make his way back across the streets, and behind a house, certainly on his way to the comforts of his woodsy home.

I wasn’t sure if the boy on the phone believed me. And since he was driving across Canada at the time for work, the phone connection wasn’t all that great. Eventually, while I still gazed at this majestic wildlife in our front yard the phone had disconnected. We didn’t talk to one another until he was a few hours from visiting me here, yesterday.

So last night before dusk we sat on the porch eating, drinking and enjoying the company of a few friends. “Oh my goodness you guys, the bear is back,” Emily pointed to the apple tree in the back yard just 10 feet below us and a few feet away. We closed the balcony gate and watched as an even larger bear then the one I’d seen the night before, perhaps 500 pounds of him, swiped up an apple off the ground and put it in his mouth. He casually made his way across the yard where the real treat was left for him. We’d left a bucket of raked apples meant for the compost next to the green house. All the children in the house watched through a window as the bear sat with the bucket between his legs and feasted on the sugary treats. There was no disbelieving for the boy on the phone now.

Being this close to nature at its finest is one of the blessings of being here in BC. It truly is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. And there’s nowhere else on the planet I’d rather be right now.

Karma is a bitch, I wish I knew what I did to deserve this shit storm... He asked me to leave and I did. When someone else he knows shows interest in me, he says he’s fine by it. When I’m seen in public with that someone else, shit hits the fan and my life becomes a soap-opera again. I’m not even on the fucking island and I’m the center of attention.

My father and mother are separating and it’s certain. She’s been in touch with a lawyer who since got in touch with my father’s lawyer. I’ll end up having to testify and that’s fine. The truth will not work in my mother’s favour but the way I see it, she hates me so much without any reason anyway, what more can the truth cause? With any luck, I’ll at least be able to help my father out. Any financial gain she takes away from this separation will be pissed away on alcohol, lawyers’ fees and whatever random crap she decides to pick up from junk shops along the way. She’s already been selling off her gold and pearls to feed her habits. It disgusts me to know what’s she’s done, what she’s attempting to do, and where it’s all going to lead. I wish I knew how my mother became what she is today, and I dread the day I become the same.

I’ve been here just over a week. I haven’t taken a single anti-depressant pill and I feel fantastic – despite the drab things that seem to be happening in my life. I’m well on my way to finding a job and generally, I’m happy. Let’s hope it stays that way.

What the hell goes on in that head? -- Photography again by Sam C.

Most successful people seem to have a story of poverty in their past. Some of the more famous stories always seem to start with something like, “I hitchhiked into town with fifty bucks in my wallet and the clothing on my back...” and they end with, “Today, I’m a content multibillionaire.” Though my childhood was plagued with alcoholism and poverty, I wonder that I’ll never get that chance again. I’ve built and been blessed with too many security blankets and people that seem to love to save me.

Sunday, I leave the island broken-hearted with more than fifty dollars in my wallet and a car that’s insured in my name – with everything I own on the western content packed into the back. But the intent of leaving the island is to truly start over – and this time, with as little outside help as possible. True, my father lent me the money to insure the car (which used to be my mother’s until her license was suspended for being a drunk with epilepsy & other mental conditions). He is also lending me more money to make sure I have enough to start up, to put a down payment on a house and tide me over until I find work. On top of that, I still get rent paid to me from my apartment in Dubai, and alimony as well. And I’m not going to a town I’ve never seen. I’m heading to Squamish, where the one sister who actually has her head on right, lives with her husband and twin children. Perhaps I’ll never be able to start a story like the many famous successful people. But I will be successful & I will find contentment.

Perhaps, I’ll even get to writing that damn book I’ve been thinking about?

Some anonymous dickhead who got a hard-on for me on another site decided to tell me what my problem was in comments here earlier today. Oh feeble minded anonymous and those like you, please allow me to make it easier for you by pointing out what my fucking problems are, so you can gladly copy & paste them in the future and be at least remotely accurate in your findings.

My biggest problem is myself. I’m a fucking cunt, not only to you but also to me. There is NOTHING you can say to me that I haven’t already told myself. I suffer a number of psychological disorders, I grew up in an alcoholic family, I have been molested more than once. I seek love in the wrong places from the wrong types of men. I cut myself. I snap, and have attempted to commit suicide (and murder) on more than one occasion. I burn way too many bridges and I find it really hard to forgive. I have to take pills to get my pitiful ass out of bed most mornings. I over-analyze just about everything. I don’t trust people, and I don’t trust myself. I make piss-poor decisions. I judge harshly, and I’m even a little racist not to mention bias concerning some things. I’m a little over weight and on the verge of becoming anorexic, my mother lost her mind and thinks I’m the antichrist. My son is on the other side of the planet, and I have made a miserable mess of my whole fucking life.

I never should have been born in the first place. But guess what dickhead, I was. And I’m not going anywhere real quick, and most certainly not because you believe the world would be a better place if it only existed of people as oblivious of themselves as you are. I may be a royal fuck up, but I know myself and I know along with all these ‘problems’ (that many, many more people face without even realizing), I’m also more intelligent than your average twat, more loved than most online trolls, more intuitive, more artistic, more creative, funnier, more accepting, kinder, bolder, stronger, with a broader view of the world, and I have a brilliant future waiting me. I excel in everything I do!

I’m 27 years old and I’m well on my way to fixing my problems, thanks to the fact that I realize they exist. Maybe instead of telling other’s what you think their problems are, you should spend more time asking yourself what the fuck your own problems are and counting your fucking virtues.

I realized the other day a fair number of my girlfriends met their boyfriend’s, fiancé’s, or husbands online. It got me thinking, I haven’t met many new people here since I got back, period. It seems as though society as a whole is making its way to the internet. TV commercials here are littered with advertisements for dating, connection, and socializing sites such as eharmony.com, or plentyoffish.com. Is this today’s and our future’s way of connecting with people? Is society as it once was dying?

Growing up, I never had problems meeting people or making friends. It’d be a lie to say I have such problems now. Perhaps it isn’t me that’s cutting herself off from the world, perhaps it’s the world cutting itself off from anyone who isn’t online? I met a friend of mine for coffee yesterday. As I stood in line waiting to order my coffee, I overheard a girl chatting on her mobile, “They sent me the same thing on facebook!” Her whole conversation seemed to be about her life online. My friend arrived with her baby and we pulled up a few chairs outside. The girl on the phone sat alone on the bench, waiting I guess, for the phone to ring again. She seemed out of place without a laptop in front of her. She seemed out of place, alone in a coffee shop like Starbucks without a drink, with a little bit of an empty look on her face. I wondered if I looked the same when I ventured out alone.

Is the internet making it hard for us to socialize? Is it making it harder for us to be a functioning society? Are online dating sites worth checking out? Is there a stigma attached to relationships that are formed online? Could there be any romance in it at all?

Five or ten minutes after I hung up the phone with my dad, the phone rang again and the call display showed my ‘Canada House – Puckle’. He was explaining to me that my mother got the results of her EEG and the doctors have found signs of Epilepsy. They refused to act on it because she has not had a seizure that she can remember in the last month or so. There’s some hope that much of what she’s been going through and putting us through have been physical after all. No doubt at all, any and all symptoms were increased thanks to her severe alcoholism. He told me she seemed to be doing better these days. She was looking for work, asking about insuring the car (though he will never agree because it’s down-right out dangerous to let her drive) and relatively positive about the idea of visiting some of her old friends.

For the past 10 or so months my mother’s hate for me has seemed to increase. A week or so back, my sister was visiting from the mainland and got to spend a day with her shopping. They planned a BBQ for the evening and when my sister mentioned that she was calling to invite me, my mom responded with, “Fine, she can come, but I’m leaving.” The fight was on, because my sister, my father and my brother know that I have done nothing to encourage this deep a hate from her. My mother’s feeble attempts to defend her opinion were drowned out by her psychotic behaviour and words. She had just called and asked to talk to me a week prior while I was with my sister, as normal. Nothing had changed in that week.

So when the phone rang this time showing her house, I assumed it was my brother calling. I answered and was shocked to hear her voice. She was talking as though all was normal, as though she hadn’t hated me for reasons unknown to me. She told me about her EEG results, she told me about her job hunt she even invited me out for coffee sometime. At the end of the conversation she said, “I’m glad we got this chance to talk.” As if for some reason she felt she could not call me up at any time previously, like I had somehow cut ties with her and not the complete opposite.

I still don’t know what to make of the conversation. I am not sure how to feel about it, or what is going on through her head. I do now know that my father was distant from her yesterday, busy with his own things and giving himself a break from the insanity. Perhaps she was just that lonely. Perhaps she’s half snapped back into reality. Perhaps, the ice I heard in the background was her first drink of the day and getting drunk alone is never any fun. Who knows.

The international documentaries made on Dubai are careful with their camera work. It’s rare that you’ll see the skyline, littered with cranes and construction workers almost dangling from their deaths tens of stories up, without harnesses. The architecture looks brilliant on the outside. Sleek glass windows, buildings so tall from the ground you imagine they touch the stars at night, marble flooring, and in some of the higher-class hotels, faucets plated in pure gold. Look a little deeper and you’ll see the walls are cracking under the paint less than a year after construction was completed, the wiring is a mess causing random mini-explosions, plumbing backs up and the building itself is no more stable than a shack.

I fell into the trap of buying an apartment in Dubai. It wasn’t a month later that, that the air conditioner (a vital instrument for living in the UAE) stopped working. It wasn’t two months in when the toilet decided to continually flush itself with a constant rush of water making its way through the bowl, increasing my electricity and water bills to shocking amounts. It was the very first week I was there, that the pipes under my sink broke and my kitchen flooded. So very pretty on the outside, but its core is complete and utter crap. Still, that lovely little piece of property is worth about 33% more now, two years later then it was when I purchased it. Why? The illusion of Dubai is simply that grand!

Life in Dubai is much the same as most of these buildings. It is picture perfect on the outside, but disturbed at its core. Visit Dubai for a week and you’ll fall in love; stay there a few years and you’ll learn to despise just about everything about it. Dubai teaches you one thing really well, and that’s how to become a plastic person. The only problem with being plastic is, plastic can’t comfort your heart – nor can the plastic people you end up surrounded by. Material things take lead, while arts, emotions, anything that makes us human is forced on the back burner.

There isn’t a proper jazz club in Dubai. There isn’t a coffee shop where one can go and watch local talent, whether it be stand up, poetry readings or even a play. All of Dubai’s entertainment is imported for a short while – long enough to put on a show or two, then sent back home. In a place that populated, there has to be talent there somewhere. But who is actually looking for it? Who is willing to embrace it? And who is able to hold on to their own talents while the whims of personal belongings, and picture perfect life charades are taking over everything they do?

In the 12 years I lived in Dubai, outside of English class in school I met only one poet. He was a brilliant writer and most likely could have made something of himself on that talent alone. But he was Indian. And life in Dubai taught him that wasn’t ok. For months he lied to me and everyone he knew, taking on an assumed local identity, concentrating more on what people thought of him and how he could further deceive us of his roots, than he possibly could his writing. I don’t imagine he’s writing still. I don’t even know if I ever actually learned his first name. But he was a talent Dubai and Dubai’s society lost out on.

Dubai is an illusion. From the fairytale cities, to the Barbie-doll type people, there is no real life there; just plastic, paint and a decaying core.

It’s not just skin deep.
~*~


Thank you Sam C. for the photography.

160 of those pounds are the boy I just walked away from. The rest is all me...

Since the start of this uproar, I haven’t been able to eat. Initially, I tried to force-feed myself only to realize that just made me feel over-bloated and worse than I already felt. Soon, I decided not to fight it. This was the silver lining to my cloud, the good bit that’s coming out of this breakup. I look better, I don’t feel half as fat, and I’m able to fit into a bunch of old clothing that I haven’t worn for months. And it was all in a matter of a few weeks.

I’m starting to worry about it though now. Sometimes, I’ll go for two and a half days without eating a thing. It’s only when I remember that I haven’t eaten in so long that I’m able to force myself to eat half a cup of soup and maybe a piece of bread, or so. And now, when I put anything in my stomach, I automatically want to vomit. I try lying down for a while after I eat. I try drinking lots of water. Nothing takes away the queasiness food seems to give me.

I wonder if this is the start of one of those crappy eating diseases like anorexia or bulimia. No matter how much I feel like I want to throw up right now, I refuse to allow myself to out of fear of becoming bulimic. But forgetting or being unable to eat for days may very well be the start of anorexia. I don’t want or need such an added issue in my life – but I’m willing to bet this is going to end up being my next big challenge. Food feels like an enemy now. It's hard to make yourself do something that feels so shitty.

Always got to be something going on in my life... It’s really starting to suck.

By midnight, there was an attempt at murder/suicide that resulted in bruised arms and a gaping hole in the leather couch. By 3am the most passionate love making was being had.

Passion is a beautiful, and yet scary thing.

I still left the house the next day – taking all my belongings with me. I will never turn back. What I’m doing next, is up in the air.

I’m sorry you don’t want me anymore. I’m sorry you’ve decided it’s time to end it all. I’m sorry you did it in such a harsh way that almost makes me want to hate you. And I’m sorry, but I need you to know one last thing: I will not once wake up with regrets but you will.

I know I’m leaving your heart and home better then when I found them. Your house is cleaner, more organized and all around more mature. And I believe along the way you learned to keep it that way. Your heart is stronger, more confident, even more sensitive (when you’re not lying to yourself about how you feel and can feel for others). I believe you will continue to grow both emotionally and physically because of the confidence I helped you find. I leave you with a clean conscience myself, knowing I did the best for you I possibly could.

On the other hand, you will wake up one morning full of regret for letting me go. You will realize not only did you leave a relationship prematurely and fail to take all you possibly could from it, but you gave me nothing positive to take away with me. You left me more broken then I was when we met. You will wake up with regret, and on that day I want you to remember one thing... Everything we have done is what made us who we are today. So even though you fucked up real bad, you need not torture yourself thinking about it. One day, you’ll be given another chance. Please learn from this one and fight for the next. You’re still young and you still have a lot to learn about both life and love. If you allow yourself to learn from this lesson, you will find happiness one day. And I so hope you do.

I loved you and you loved me too.

The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to face, but whether it is the same problem you had last year. ~John Foster Dulles

It was just over a year and a month ago my romantic life exploded into raging anger, so much so that I could not bear the idea of staying one more day in the same country as my ex. Today, I’m preparing to move out of my ex boyfriends’ and my house and out of the city both he and my psychotic mother live in. If there’s any truth in that beautiful quote above, and I believe there is, I am not a very successful person right now.

Completely tossed the other night and dealing with heartbreak I called the boy and asked him why he did what he did to me. A little over a year after the breakup, he has little to say except, “I’m deeply sorry for what I did to you. I miss you terribly and thinking about the love we shared almost brings me to tears. I still love you”.

There’s a lot to say about that and any comparisons that can be made between boys from the west and local boys. Both of them can be assholes, but local boys seem to be more passionate about their women (and note the plural). They seem to take better care not to inflict pain on a casual basis, where as boys from the west are colder, less considerate and can seem emotionless though more often than not, they’re faithful.

Since being home, I’ve learned to miss a few of the comforts a local boy would offer. I miss being almost force-fed when I’m not really hungry but clearly haven’t eaten enough. I’ve missed being dropped off at the entrance of a shop rather than a block away in the parking lot. I’ve missed being picked up when I needed a ride – and even when I didn’t really. I’ve missed being asked if I needed anything while he’s on his way to me. I’ve missed the small surprises. I’ve missed knowing that at 3am if I had a craving for a donut or pickles, he would be more than happy to go pick those things up for me. The list goes on and on, but to sum it all up I’ve missed being spoiled rotten.

But are those little things worth the pain that comes with knowing 9 times out of 10 he’s probably spoiling someone else alongside you? To be honest with you, I’m not even sure I know the answer to that one anymore.

Anyone who plays poker knows the person with the largest stack has the highest chances of winning, even early on in the game because they know they can bully their opponents out of taking huge risks with their smaller stacks by betting big, even on lesser cards forcing everyone to weigh their risks and fold. Relationships are much like that. The one who holds the ‘power’ tends to feel less pain when things go bad, and can thrive off the weaker person’s insecurities. But should the weaker person take a stand, and say “Fuck you, I’m all in”, the chances of them winning that hand seem to be greater as the power shifts and the player with the larger stack most-likely gets caught by surprise and makes the foolish mistake of calling on shitty whole cards.

People get high on power like they get high on bigger stacks of chips in poker. They make fatal mistakes, believing for that brief moment while they’re on top that they are invincible. But before they know it, the weaker player has doubled their stack and stands face to face with them.

I’ve been at my sister’s place for two nights now. On the morning I left, he decided to break up with me. That’s all good because I knew it wasn’t working out anyway. But the rejection hurt, and gave him the bigger stack – and I’d been miserable. Last night I went all in, and said, “Fuck it, and fuck you.” And now, I feel a billion times better.

So much so, I can share with you all we almost got attacked by a nice big bear and her baby cubs last night. My sister lives in an awesome place on the edge of the forest. With a couple of cherry trees and an apple tree in the yard, the bears like to sneak down at night for dinner. With a bear on the tree at the edge of the yard, we made the mistake of walking over there to get a better look in the pitch black of night. We didn’t see the cubs until the mama bear growled at us, sending us all flying towards the house and up the porch stairs – where we finally decided to get a flashlight and brilliantly walk out there again. Since running up the stairs I was tripped by my sister’s puppy and bruised up my knee and foot real well, I decided not to go much beyond halfway through the yard this time. I’ll tell ya, it was a thrill.

It’s not such much a pain anymore,
as a hollow in my gut,
an ache,
emptiness,


when love starts to die.

I’m leaving tomorrow for the mainland. I’m off to spend a few weeks with my sister. In preparation for that trip, I went shopping today. I have never loved clothing shopping. In fact, when I was in Dubai, I had a Lebanese girlfriend who would come shopping with me, choose the clothing she thought would fit and I would like, and only then would I bother trying stuff on and actually purchasing. If I had to go alone, I wouldn’t stop foot in a changing room. There’s one thing Lebanese girls have, and that’s an eye for fashion and that persistent nature of making you do what they think is right!

Moving on... today’s experience was of the most horrific shopping experiences of my life. I realize and accept that I’ve gained 25lbs since I’ve been back in Canada. I’ve enjoyed watching my breasts go from a B cup, to a D in no time – I had simply convinced myself that that’s where it ended. What I didn’t expect was to find my thighs too big to get into the size 10 I’ve been since I gave birth to my son. I’m not even joking more than once I almost cried in the changing room, realizing how my body now resembles a fucking pear.

So after trying on 20 odd pairs of pants or shorts, and realizing I wasn’t going to fit into any of the ones I would have a year ago, I left the shop buying only a few tops and nothing more.

I headed out that door and strait to lunch – and damn Thai Stir Fry tastes good when you’re dwelling on the weight you’ve gained. I picked up a 6 pack on my way home (which is probably the cause of the weight I’ve gained to start with), and I’m packing as though the shopping trip never took place.

Chapter II?

~*~

Nationality plays the biggest role in your life in Dubai, with it being one of the most racist multi-national societies on the planet, if not the most. Walk into any coffee shop or restaurant and survey the tables. The first thing you’ll notice are how each table has its own nationality and invisible borders seem to separate each of the races as starkly as black on white. This mentality spread as far back to my days in an International High School there, where the school cafeteria was just as divided. I remember disliking this reality as a naive teenager and attempting to change it.

A new Indian girl had joined a few weeks after school started. She didn’t seem to click right away with those of her own nationality and it wasn’t uncommon to find her eating alone during lunch. I invited her to eat with us, partially out of sorrow and partially because at that time, I believed I could fix the world of all its ailments. She refused. A few days later, I attempted again and to my utter surprise she jumped up and screamed at me that I hated her and I did so because she was Indian. She then burst out in tears and ran out of the cafeteria. Coming from Canada and before this instance not really grasping the depth of racism I was shocked and disgusted by the accusation. I never did talk to her again. It was only years later that I realized how it must have felt for her, after having her parents beat it into her that all white people thought they were superior and since we thought so, we must be. I shit you not, later in life I have come across Asians who argue that the only reason Canada is a better place to live than the UAE is because Canada is run by white people (a complete loud of crap, but believed by many just the same) and the UAE is run by brown people.

Despite that being as far from the truth as possible for most new comers to Dubai, eventually westerns are given a superiority complex and find themselves in an ongoing battle with locals about who in fact rules their country, because despite the largest part of the population being Indian or Asians, they simply aren’t competent enough to take on the roll – it must be the Arabs or the westerners. Look at any job listing in the local papers and three out of four times, you’re going to find a requested race. Next to managerial or leading high paying positions, Westerners or locals are requested. Next to low paying administration or secretarial jobs, you’ll find Indians, Pakistani or Filipinos being requested. I dare anyone to find a domestic help, construction labour, or table waiting position in a restaurant, offered to locals or westerners. No, no, those low paying, low respected jobs are reserved for the lesser races – who cares if they have experience and degrees that make ours look like they came out of a cereal box!

There is an invisible racial hierarchy in Dubai that tourists may fail to see, but those living there know where they stand. And there are a number of generalizations that can be made about each race based on that race living and working in the emirate. At the top of the racial hierarchy you’ll find the locals and the westerners, each of which complaining that the other thinks they rule the UAE. Most other nationalities will simply call it even between the two, once they put aside their own racial preferences.

Just below them, you’ll find the Arab nationals from countries like Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine. This nationality takes up few of the moderate to low paying jobs, and can somewhat rarely be found in the higher paying, more prestigious ones. However, when they do land such a job, they’re the first to flaunt it by taking out excessive bank loans to create the facade that they’re living the high life. This nationality is the one that drives beat up, old BMW’s and get ridiculed for thinking their cars are the shit, or should they stumble on a big enough bank loan, they’ll drive Mercedes spending their very last dirham (local currency) on it, along with a matching brand-named wardrobe, while having a barren flat to live in and little food to eat at home. And at the end of the day, who can blame them? If you don’t look good in Dubai, you must not be anyone!

The next tier is where the eastern Europeans fit in. The women in this category are more often than not accused of prostitution and you’ll rarely find them working a job away from serving tables at a shisha or coffee shop. They’re widely believed to have one purpose in Dubai, and that’s to find a rich local to marry for the sake of getting that all too famous Emirati passport. I lived with a Russian girl once. She was one of the hardest working, innocent sales people I’d ever come across -- but I must be wrong about that because UAE society says so.

The lowest form of life according to this hierarchy, are the Asians, whether they be from India or China, labourers even get their own lower-class, cheaper shopping centers. You’ll find that these are people who built this country and continue to make it thrive. They’re also the least paid the least respected and for some reason (perhaps the long, underappreciated days working in the sun?) the worst smelling. God forbid! Many of the major shopping malls have forbidden bachelors (another loose term given to the labour workers who build the country) from being in them – God forbid they clash with the shiny, picturesque interior. No nightclub will allow them entrance and many residential buildings have forbidden them from taking up residence in them. On the other side side of the coin, Asian or Arab taxi drivers will bypass another Asian or Arab for a western looking traveller a block or two down the street, based on the generalization that Westerners travel to less congested places, and they tip better*2.

One of the more complex observation of a society as racially fucked up as this one, are the numbers of people who actually seem to suffer racial identification crisis. Ask an Indian or Arab who has a Canadian passport where he’s from and he’ll tell you he’s Canadian, despite not having ever lived a day there. Ask an Eastern European who has married a national where she is from and she’ll tell you she’s local, despite having no local blood in her. In Dubai, there too much attention is paid on race, denying your race, judging others by their race, or denying you’re racist, when the truth be told... If you’ve spent enough time there and still come out claiming you’re not racist, you’re a liar and no Dubain (excepting those in denial) will believe you.

I’ve been back in the West more than a year now. I’m still trying to shake the idea that life is really only skin deep. I know some former Dubains who despise the UAE based solely on that that disgusting transformation of their once non-bias personality, conceived while residing there.

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Should I continue? I think I'm going to have to. I'm just having too much fun writing... (And it's been a while!)