Life is Good

Sarah Walton over at SandPitDiaries was kind enough to give me a 'Life is Good' award, whatever one of those is. It comes with some questions, which I usually avoid like the plague, but seeeing as it's Sarah, here goes:


1. If you blog anonymously, are you happy doing this? If you aren't anonymous, do you wish you started out anonymously, so that you could be anonymous now?
Nope. I think we should be accountable for our views.

2. Describe an incident that shows your inner stubborn side
 I wear my stubbornness on my shirtsleeve. I sat down to write Space, my first book, in 2003. I’m currently shopping my third book, Beirut, around. That’s 300,000 words of stubborn.

3. What do you see when you really look at yourself in the mirror?
 I’m not getting any younger, but it could be worse.

4. What is your favourite summer cold drink?
Beer

5. When you take time for yourself, what do you do?
Write and edit

6. Is there something that you still want to accomplish in your life?
Yes, get published.

7. When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the shy person, or always ditching?
I was extremely mixed up and many things, including three of the above but never, ever overachieving. I resolutely underachieved and resolutely performed to a fraction of my potential. I loathed school and didn’t mind letting them know it. Given that I was handed a very expensive government-funded scholarship to attend a very expensive public school, I should feel more guilty about that than I do.

8. If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what would you see?
My wife looking across a green and white tablecloth at the President hotel in Dubai asking me “What have we done?” on our first night in the UAE as residents.

9. Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog, or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people and events?
 It’s not about me so much as things that amuse or engage me.

10. If you had the choice to sit down and read a book or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?
The book. I’m scared of my new phone, it’s smarter than I am. Yeah, I know that’s not hard.


And now, as is the way with these things, I have to pass it on to three bloggers:


Sara Refai, whose Ussa Nabulsiyeh blog is a brilliantly well written delight and has arguably saved a life.

Roba Al-Assi, whose And Far Away always fun to read and furnished me with the soundtrack to the casino scene in Beirut.

Seabee, whose Life In Dubai is almost an institution.