I spent 200 qatari riyals reminiscing about you last night. I was meant to be doing Pilates, yet I found myself stopping mid-rollup to tell my instructor something awesome about you. We talked about you. About your electricity. About your vibe. About your “live and let live” approach to life. About your “joie de vivre”. About your spirituality. About your love. We never referred to you in the past tense. And this morning Facebook memories sent me a picture reminding that you’d passed, that you were no longer here, on this Earth, of this realm. Silly Expat Me. I remember you. I miss you. I forg ..read more

For every single one of us, there will be a goodbye that defines us. It may be filled with tears, or with none. We may blubber messily or muddle mutely through the heartache. We may emerge resolute in our conviction that this is just a bridge, and that we'll say hello one day again, or we may dissolve into tears at the thought of never capturing the moment again. For each and every one of us expat girls, there will be that Judy Blume summer that immortalises our childhood. For three weeks, I've been watching my 12-year-old and her best friend recapture three years of lost time. They're expat ..read more

A few years ago I wrote this post on high altitude flatulence expulsion (HAFE). To this day, it continues to get the most hits by far on my site (81.4% of hits this past week). This tells me two important things about humanity: We cannot get over our fascination with farts We still have a lot of questions on the effects of altitude The second point is what leads me to today's post.  I am currently in my favourite place in the world for 4 glorious weeks. It just so happens that this favourite place sits at 1,800 m (just over 5,900 ft). On any given day we may hike or take a cable car up ..read more

A company merger has loomed over our expat selves for several months now. It's not something we really talk about; it's just there. It's always there for an expat, that uncertainty, that 'not knowing', even when it doesn't have a name, even when it's not called a merger. The last ten years have been all about uncertainty. ''Will my contract be renewed?'' ''Will I get that promotion?'' ''Will Kiddo get to finish this school year here?'' ''Will I be transferred?'' ''Will they move me to a new villa, compound, city?'' ''Should I brush up my résumé now?'' As expats, we always have Plan A and Plan ..read more

I don't feel the pain of the loss so much these days. Or at least I don't feel it so sharply, so intensely, so unbearably crippling in its fury. But every once in a while I feel it creep up on me. No. Not really a creep.  More of a wrench.  As life drifts more and more into 'normal' without him here, I almost forget the pain of losing him. I'm accustomed to the absence.   Until I remember it. The Pain. It strikes at the most inopportune times. Almost jokingly. Like we're playing a game, Pain and Me, like we're dancing an endless tango, the musical dance born from slaves. Am I a ..read more

Let me start by being as whole-heartedly honest-to-goodness up-front with you as an addict can: I'm not happy and this isn't an uplifting post. If you're looking for motivation to keep on ''being quit'' you probably won't find it here. But nor will you likely find an excuse to start again. I'm not here for you anyhow. I'm here because I'm an angry ex-smoker with a need to blow off some steam and I'm sick of trying to walk and bike to ''fight through the craving'' so I may as well write.  I am headed into my 21st day smoke free. It's actually only Day 20 but it's almost bedtime and even t ..read more

I never wanted to be about politics ... but the last week has carried me far beyond my belly-button-gazing comfort zone. Up until his swearing in, I held on to the hope that Donald Trump would renounce the farce, would man up and would accept the presidency with grace. He didn't. His inauguration appearance and speech only further  convinced me that he'd wagered his life earnings that he could bring down the almighty US of A and all it stands for in one fell swoop. The palpitations I felt while listening to his speech had nothing to do with admiration for a man who believes in democracy a ..read more

Written on December 31, 2016 .... posted on January 12, 2017. I'd forgotten I'd written this. Apparently even in a drunken stupor I remembered not to drink and post ...  Take what's yours and make it better ... no need to start over. If I could start again, my friend, and wipe my slate, I wouldn't. I wouldn't change a single thing. All around me, people are headed for a resolution: ''I won't do on January 1st what I'm dying to do to excess on December 31st.'' ''I won't drink, I won't eat, I won't smoke, I won't laze about ...'' ''For at least a month or so ...'' ''I'll go to the gym ever ..read more

The following post is re-blogged from my little cousin's blog. What you won't read in the post is the fact that she's given up all her worldly possessions to pursue her passion for adventure, her need to be free, and her resolve to make a difference. Those are my words, not hers. I haven't seen my little cousin Katie in over 13 years; anything I say about her is based on nothing more than our occasional Facebook exchanges, sporadic emails, and innate familial gut-feel.  This girl isn't a back-seat driver. She needs to be at the wheel. She needs to DO. Sitting back and wondering ''What if ..read more

If like me, you refer to degenerative disc disease as ''DDD'', I'm guessing you're already in agony and Googling your pain is what led you to this post. If that's the case, read on. Unfortunately, DDD is a condition I've become far too familiar with over these last few weeks. So let me start by saying 2 things: I know you may have recently, for the first time in your life, wished you could just die and end the pain. There is a hope. Those voices tell you you'll be an invalid, incapacitated, useless. Shut them out. They're wrong. If you're well enough to be typing and sitting at a computer r ..read more