Ebaida

 Admittedly, the brain dump of 2022 so far has been, shall we say, morose.  But it feels good to get it out.

But today I'm going to lighten up a little.  'Tis said that politics makes strange bedfellows.  Well, so do pandemics.  I sometimes shake my head in wonder that somehow two women have become best friends.  One is Egyptian, lives in an apartment in Cairo, bit of a neat freak, a devout Muslim (with Sufi leanings) and will call an exterminator if she sees a lizard inside.  The other lives in the woods of North Florida, nonplussed by the huge spiders hanging around, much less all the other bugs, comfortable with having bears and snakes and whatever other critter in the yard, definitely not neat, a sort of non-denominational pagan.  And yet here we are.

And it began with the Phantom of the Opera. A musical that I've loved for 35 years, despite it's rather limited plot line (seriously - a woman has to choose between a young, handsome, wealthy, devoted childhood sweetheart and a deranged deformed psychopath who lives in the basement).  But that music . . . sigh.

In April 2020, after I came home from Gainesville minus Bob and plus a pandemic, still in shock and wondering what the hell happened, I was aimlessly staring at the TV and saw that a theater fundraiser was showing "Phantom of the Opera - 25th anniversary".  I watched it.

Wow.

It was an over-the-top gala performance.  Above all, there was the Phantom, played with a sort of sweet vulnerability.  And with a voice like no voice I had ever heard before.  With the foundations of my world having crumbled beneath me, I clung to that voice like a drowning man clutching a bit of flotsam.  I listened to everything on YouTube (there's a lot).  And interviews - because he also has a soft soothing speaking voice.  Anyone who ever talked to me (not that there were many) had to hear about this guy.  That voice.  That niceness.  That talent. Those eyes . . .

About 8 months later, I even joined a FaceBook  Ramin Karimloo fan group.  I usually don't fangirl because such groups are usually pretty adolescent.  As was this one, usually.  But sometimes we would have some fun.  There is one video where as he's singing he rather artlessly sprays some cologne on his neck and wrists.  I made a comment that I would love to lean in for a sniff.  Somehow between another woman and myself we organized an international group of women to convene in Essex to make a raid on the Karimloo laundry basket to steal a T-shirt.  It was never to be.  1) not entirely practical, especially during a pandemic; 2) his wife is a personal trainer - we've seen her videos and she could take us on with one hand tied behind her back, and 3) he has two teenage boys and it could be really bad if we grabbed the wrong laundry basket.

But it was silly, and fun, and because of that, Ebaida and I became friends.  I'm not sure when we started chatting privately via FB messenger, but now we chat daily.  We've read books together.  She sent me a novella that she wrote.  In turn, I sent her the penny-dreadful I wrote for a Gothic Literature class.  This past fall she had the opportunity to write a series of books in English about the life of a nurse in Egypt (to help nursing students learn English). (Side note - she is completely bilingual - her English is perfect).  She sent me the first one.  I liked the characters and the story line, but I tried to diplomatically ask if she was going to have an editor, as the writing was rather "stream of consciousness."  I ended up being that editor, and we had a great time working on the books together.

We've learned to share computer screens, so we regularly watch videos, movies, TV series together.  We read books together.  We chat (writing) and talk (video chat) a lot.  Often serious - she lets me talk about Bob endlessly, and says that she has fallen in love with him.  She has had her own losses (not my story to tell).  We talk about religion. About how she was shot at during the military coup.  But we also laugh, and there is a lot of exchange about various handsome men (it started with Ramin, but we have definitely branched out, mostly her educating me - she's been collecting handsome men for awhile).

So it's a very strange and quite wonderful friendship, beginning with the Phantom and a pandemic.