More about Riyadh, and ODD

There are no pictures here, because it takes over one hour to upload each individual one.  It actually takes longer to upload a photograph here, now, than it took to upload photos in Delaware 1998 when I had a dial up modem and an AOL screen name.

Anyway, my final thoughts regarding Riyadh:  dogs, children, and women. 

I don't have a television in Dubai, because I'm easily lured into the mindless activity and there are a host of other equally mindless things I would rather do, so I watched TV in the Golden Tulip Andalusia hotel in Riyadh.  The cable was comprised of Arabic or English commentaries on football (soccer) or cricket, and Animal Planet.  Guess what I watched.  AP was the one channel I could understand and so it was an unadulterated pleasure.  There was one show, in particular, I enjoyed:  Dogs 101.  In KSA, there are no dogs; in Dubai, there are only a scattered few.  I love dogs, but I have never owned one and living in the Middle east, I have become inured to the very idea that I don't see them.  This program, however, made me want to go out and get a puppy.  So I made the only New Year's Resolution I will ever keep:  at some point, before I die, I will have a dog.  I think that's pretty reasonable.
I didn't see many children during my 3 1/2 weeks in KSA, nor did I see/hear any playing.  I'm pretty curmudgeonly regarding the kids, but I'm used to hearing them, and that lack of baseline pleasure provided by the laughter of children made KSA seem incredibly lonely and joyless.  I haven't resolved to have children, but I will try and be more tolerant of them in spite of knowing that they will grow up to be huge pains in the ass.  All of them.
Finally, the women.  I'm as misogynistic as the next man so when I heard there were no women drivers, my initial reaction was:  fewer accidents.  That is patently untrue, because KSA has the highest traffic mortality rate in the world.  Even that statistic is far outstripped by the number of non-fatal accidents which happen every day there.  Even more, it is a strangely alien landscape when all one sees are men in the driver's seat.  It just feels wrong that gender precludes or includes one from certain activities.  Who knew I was such a feminist?  Not me.
Anyway, when I heard that all women had to wear the abaya (the black outer garment worn by muslim women) regardless of religion, I was relatively apathetic, because neither the hijab (head covering) nor the burqa (face covering) is mandatory.  The truth is, although KSA doesn't demand the wearing of the burqa, the boorish behavior of the leering men prescribes it.  What I truly didn't expect was to never ever see a woman unaccompanied by a male.  Ever.  The coffee shops, the bookstores, the grocery stores, the mall...the separation of the woman's body, hair, face, hands from those around her turned her into a child and made me get all ODD.  The KSA woman can't leave her house by herself.   She needs permission.  She is a dog.  Even worse than a dog.  Because at least a dog isn't allowed or, if it is, it is venerated.  So sad.  For the Western Expat woman living in KSA, I have nothing but total disdain.  I can't even say how disgusting I think the idea of bowing to money in lieu of freedom is.  I have no words for the sorrow.  But:


At the Tamimi market on "Al Farouq 'something some name I don't care about' Saud" street,
I saw a statuesque woman sheeted in the obligatory abaya.
But her blond hair swung low like that sweet chariot.
Seeing her hair, on December 24, 2010, I felt like the Magi.
Drawn to something unknown, something beautiful, something so terrible,
something so utterly far away.

ODD:
Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is described by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior toward authority figures which goes beyond the bounds...(the rest of the entry talks a lot about kids, but not about adults with the same behavior)

I can't help myself.  I get angry at authority.  I get hostile.  I do all the wrong things, almost all of the time.  I'm ethically flexible and morally unreliable, but if anyone tells me he/she is in charge...something happens to my head.  I have lost every job I ever had because someone said "I'm your boss."  They all said it, and I looked at them square in the eye and said "No, you aren't."  (Except for the first Pinkerton job I had, when I quit because the office people were screwing me over.)  It happened today, in Dubai.  The Veej came over to me while I was checking my schedule, laid his hand on my shoulder and said "Is everything ok?  How was Saudi?"  "Fine" I said.  "I'm your boss, you can tell me anything" he said.  I looked him square in the eye for a second, and said "You are not my boss."  Then I got up and walked away. (I'm not fired, because I'm too valuable...weird, right?)  It's a serious problem I have.  It's the same reason I'm fucking over Mohammed Saud in his quest to cheat the GMAT:  he said he was in charge of me.  He's not.  No one has ever been in charge of me.   Quote from one of emails to him:  "I have an inestimable capacity to fuck over those who think they are in charge of me."  Sometimes, I know I would like to submit.  But I can't.  
Because I think of kids who can't fight for themselves, I think of animals which can't fight for themselves, I think of adults who have given up the fight to keep themselves.  I'm not insane enough to think I'm a beacon, nor delusional enough to think I matter in the grand scheme of things.  But for this tiny world I inhabit, the very little I might be able to do I will, even if it's only for the cat I tried to adopt or the children my sister is trying to make hers.  I don't accept any authority.  And I don't have it within myself to ever accept.