December Sunshine in All Good Things

December in Dubai is strange. Two mornings in a row, I woke to such thick fog that I couldn't see the buildings across the empty lot behind my apartment building. The past two days actually had clouds in the sky, the kind of high sketchy clouds we get in England sometimes, stretching out across most of the blue, making the sun feel cool on your skin. But around midday it actually gets very hot, even though in the evenings and early morning you definitely want clothing with sleeves. Not warm clothing, not jackets or such, but not bare skin like is preferable for the rest of the year.

I preferred June. When the moment you stepped outside into the sun it felt like stepping into an oven as thick, dry heat wrapped itself around you and sank deep into your bones. December heat is different, Much, much cooler. Humid instead of dry.

I've now been here for almost a week. It is Saturday today, Dubai's version of Sunday, which takes a lot to get used to. Yesterday was my first Friday ever in Dubai, because normally it's the day I fly out on. I lay in the sunshine on my balcony and enjoyed the sound of the cricket game down in the empty lot played by a group of Indian workers, for whom Friday is their sole day off. An Ethiopian taxi driver this week told me he never gets a day off, works 12-hour shifts on and then off. Always. But he was thrilled, because he was able to send his mother the day before 20,000 of whatever Ethiopian money is, and he's only been here three weeks. He said she'd never seen so much money all at once, despite a lifetime of both her and his father working as government employees in Ethiopia. The other day I had a Bangladeshi taxi driver who was on his third day of working here. He still didn't know where anything was and passengers had been yelling at him. It felt slightly strange to be able to say, "That's okay, I'll show you where to go." It seems like Dubai should still be new and unfamiliar to me, but I'm pretty used to it now, on my fourth visit in six months. Altogether I'll have spent nearly five weeks here since June. It's starting to feel like just another hometown of mine.

It's horrible being here without Annette, though. She was working in Hong Kong and then went to Shanghai to celebrate her birthday and was fed up in general after a bad job there and didn't want to come and do this one with me. Instead, I'm working with Nicole, the owner of the company employing me here, who isn't an editor but is a steno writer like me. She was the senior writer in Hong Kong when I moved there, so it feels kind of awkward in general, having her work as the junior partner to me. But she couldn't find any other editors, apparently. I discovered Kim from Hong Kong was one of those she'd asked, but when I messaged Kim for her birthday the day before yesterday, she informed me that she's six months pregnant! That means she was three months pregnant the last time I saw her in Hong Kong in September. Wow.

December 5 was actually the birthday of three good friends of mine. One was Kim, who I've known since my Hong Kong days. One was Karla, who was a close friend of mine in early high school - until I started dating her older brother, and she thought I'd only befriended her to have access to him. It wasn't true, as he was the one who'd chased me, and eventually we made up again, but our friendship was never quite the same. She moved to England with her husband and children six years ago almost the exact same week that I did, but somehow we've never met up. She lives in the west, and I feel bad about not having got together with her. The third was Meg, an Icelandic girl who was my best friend when I was eight and had just moved from Malawi to Zimbabwe. Her mother was one of the teachers at the mission school we attended (mine was too) and her father was the pastor. She was a few years older than me, but mission schools don't have many pupils so you tend to be friends with people of all ages, and somehow she and I hit it off. After her family left Zimbabwe a year later, we lost touch but thanks to Facebook have found each other again and I've enjoyed having her as a part of my life, even from such a distance (she lives in the US now). It's funny that all three of those friends of mine share the same birthday.

I obviously get on with Sagittarians. Yesterday was the birthday of the girl who was one of my closest friends ever, like my adopted sister, until she stole my mother's retirement money (and lied about it and still hasn't admitted it to this day, twelve years later, even though we have proof). I couldn't bring myself to wish her happy birthday. It's all I can do to be friends with her on Facebook. Last Sunday was Annette's birthday. The day after tomorrow is the birthday of the twins who were my best friends in Zimbabwe after Meg left, although we've completely lost touch now and are not even friends on Facebook. And a few days after that is Jerry's birthday, my German ex-boyfriend who informed me, when I got engaged, that I'd been the love of his life. He got engaged last month and never replied when I sent him a long message on Facebook congratulating him.

Meanwhile, I'm in Dubai without any of my friends. We've had a long weekend after the first job unexpectedly ended a day early, but I've not been up to going sightseeing on my own. I just can't seem to do it anymore. Not by myself. I'm going to try in a minute - if I can decide where to go. I'd intended to buy a 48-hour open-top bus ticket and just spend a couple of days riding around, but I couldn't get myself motivated. Now I'm trying to decide whether I should head for the gold and spice souks in Old Dubai, or the Marina in very new Dubai, or maybe even the beach - but it's the weekend and I don't feel like being among crowds. We're having Monday off (the equivalent of Tuesday here) so maybe I'll hit the beach then instead.

Will has decided to become a tattooist to supplement his art career, so he doesn't have to kill his spirit in a management job in an office. He has a friend who's offered to train him and last night was their first session. It went amazingly, apparently. I'm so proud of him for following his art. He's started doing a painting a day, even it means getting up at 4am to get it done before work if he's going out that evening, and I'm astounded. Before this he'd done only abstract art, some of which I'd loved, and which is what had got him into art school, but now he's started doing representational stuff for the first time - and he's GOOD. Incredibly good. I think he's stunned himself. I always knew he could draw fantastically, but his paintings....some of them make me cry because they're so emotional. He brings life to inanimate objects. He knows I love landscapes, which he's always despised, but to please me he started doing some....and I want to frame each one and hang it on the wall. They're incredible. So much better than so much art that's in shops or even in galleries. And I'm not saying that because he's my husband. He really is an amazingly talented artist. I had no idea he had this inside him. He had such beauty inside him....

As for me, I have to survive these next five days and then I'll be free to return to frigid Britain for three weeks until I leave for Zimbabwe in early January. I can't wait for that. I am so over travelling for work.