Wednesday, August 11, 2010

-gamy

My windowless room in Lisbon is irrelevant to the topic of this communication and would require a fully dedicated study of its own perhaps with a psychological analysis of previous survivors.  In fact, that could be an introduction to a series of posts about this mystical house that I have unawarely visited a month ago when my colleague inhabited it but all that I will spare for another procrastination. Instead, I will discuss a more existential situation that is induced from this very house of mainly windowless rooms and unexpected visits -- I will discuss marriage!

Last week, I find myself sharing this house with two married couples. Suddenly, my unbearable lightness of being (in a windowless room, to add insult to injury) is united and aggravated by four additional unbearable lightnesses of being, particularly in the form of unbearably being together or coexisting.

Slamming doors, screaming spouses and sobbing wives is nothing compared to the psychological feeling of guilt  induced either by being single and not sharing the agony that these couples are going through, or by being around and thinking I might be suppressing their natural instinct and behavior that could have easily gone to the extent of homicide without me.    
   
In other words, I am somehow unconsciously and involuntarily transported from agamy to bigamy and sometimes tetragamy (polygamy) skipping through monogamy, and the possible benefits of getting a passport out of all this mess, Gamoto!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

El Viaje Del Elefante

I went to a FNAC bookstore in Lisbon to buy myself a book, or a train/plane companion, as I like to call it. I suddenly remembered how much I wanted to read Saramgo in his native language when I could only find him in French, a couple of weeks ago at a bookstore in Lebanon. My excitement was soon to vanish from my face and melt into a disappointment as the price tag became legible ---19 EUR? And I thought 17 USD was a ripoff for the French translation but I must have known too little about ripoff. Anyway, the book seemed pretty bulky and heavy for the amount of literature it contained, especially, when to my surprise a much lighter alternative edition of the same book came to compete for my decision making and anxiety. The alternative edition offered the same story for only 9 EUR, but in Spanish! Suddenly, I thought of how much I need to improve my Spanish dismissing the whole point of wanting to read Saramago in Poruguese. I could hardly justify my economically biased turn of events that gave Saramago -- may his soul rest in peace -- the unanticipated role of a Spanish teacher simply because learning Spanish happens to be cheaper these days or at FNAC. Or was I subconsciously thinking of reading Saramago and learning Spanish at the same time?