Tuesday, April 28, 2009

bitter lemon and two apples

i really think that dress looks nice on you. i can see a lot of life in you.

bitter lemon and two apples argileh today. that's a change.

today i am a pirate again, but only because i never went home to change my clothes. and i really like the way i dress, but i wear such strange and conspicuous things that everyone i see knows i haven't changed my clothes since yesterday morning. that's what i get for tying massive gray scarves to my head. 

i was thinking, the other day, walking around on campus, that me in jordan is like that weird quirky girl in junior high. the one you read about in books but never knew anyone like her, never knew anyone who would actually 
wear big neon green and rainbow headphones over the scarf tied around her head like a pirate 
(and everyone else wears trendy tight jeans and hijabs and lots of makeup and black eyebrow liner), or 
sing to herself all the time in a language no one else is speaking 
(and everyone else twitters in a language she doesn't speak), or
dance a little bit when she's feeling particularly awake
(and everyone else stalks around like robots, afraid of moving their body in the slightest unnecessary way), or
smile at strangers
(and everyone else's eyes are on the ground or on their friends, or on that weird girl with the headphones), or
walk around alone just to think about things
(and everyone else is divided into clubs and posses, why would you want to go anywhere alone?)

i was always a little different, even in isla vista a little different. but here i am an alien, content to be an outsider. i dont try to fit in because i dont want to fit in, because i dont have to fit in, because this place isn't real life for me. and again, that has always been true-- my head has always spent more time in the clouds or deep underground than it ever spent on the surface. i'm not interested in dry land. but here, here they think i am absolutely, batshit effing crazy, because this isn't a place that likes differences. and everywhere i walk i am the center of attention, twittering girls and staring boys, whispering confused questions in quick succession-- she must be crazy. not even the other americans so what she does. and i just smile to myself, which confuses them even more, and hold my chin a little higher and walk a little more purposefully. 

if nothing else (and really, it is everything else too), jordan has banished any doubts i ever had that i like myself. haha.

2 days ago i decided to wear a skirt. and a KNEELENGTH skirt at that. oh my goodness, i have never in my life scandalized so many people at once. but i kept catching my reflection in the mirror, a long baggy sweater and a kneelength skirt, scarf tied around my head, and i just couldn't bring myself to think i was anything but respectable; not all the glaring college girls in the world could convince me otherwise. 

it's interesting living here, necessarily disconnected from social scenes and social norms, too far outside the bell curve to even see it in the distance. 

and some people might not think that is a positive thing, but i didnt come here to fit in-- i couldnt if i tried. i came to collide with the bell curve, and i am every day succeeding. and, regardless, i dont think there's a single jordanian, not even the skydiving, palace-living-in, blog-commenting, bubbling jordanian king, who has as much fun here as i do.

they dont like acoustic anything here, and i am acoustic everything. they like glitter paint on their hookahs, and rhinestones on their cell phones, and plastic things, and poetry with abab rhyme schemes, and high heels to make them taller, and lots of makeup, and synthesizers and many singers in every song, and shiny cars with stickers on them of the king, and big ipods, and zebra print chairs, and-- 

ok pause i think the waiter just tried to kiss me, cool. dear god this country, haha. it doesnt even surprise me anymore.

 anyway they like shiny plastic, things made in factories and glittering vases. i think this is a place full of high school kids, boys who can't get enough of their cars and girls who just discovered that everything comes in hot pink. 

it is a strange existence i have here. 

also, the waiter just came back to ask if we were friends. would it be weird for me to get a guard dog?

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