It's getting louder

Like it's getting closer. Or probably the bombs are just bigger. I automatically went and changed my clothes, to something I can sleep in, but look decent in if I have to run out of here. My bag is packed. I just have to put up the computer.

It reminds me of when I was in Taiwan. During a typhoon all these people ran out of their houses (I don't know why you would run out of your house during a typhoon) and the news cameras came to interview them and they weren

DAMN--It's really loud. The car alarms keep going off. Every time it goes off, I get up and go out to the balcony and look and then I stay and then I head back in and then they go off again. I want to see the red flash/star that I saw that other night. But the neighbors say that can't see anything from their balconies. But they said they're watching on the TV-- it's the airport, not the Dahiye, southern suburbs. (All this yelling from the balconies is in Arabic, by the way!)

Okay, back to my story, where was I?? And the news cameras came to interview them and they were all not fully dressed. So my friend's mom always sleeps in clothes that are decent just in case she has to run out of her house when she's sleeping and the news cameras are there.

So good thing I was decent. Because Ayman just came to my door to return my camera. He went to the Saudi Embassy to drop off the kids and I told him to take a lot of pictures of Beirut. (You know, for the blog.) And of course, he didn't take any.

So I was like, "It's so loud." "We're used to that here in Aley." He's 28 and has always lived here. He said during the war, bombs hit his house three times. I didn't get details about the extent of the damage (damn, I'm such a bad reporter.) And he laughed when he saw my backpack and computer bag by the door. "You're ready to go."

He also said Beirut was empty. And that there was no one at the Saudi Embassy. "But what about those 1,000 people?" He said, maybe they left beforehand. But thankfully, they're taking all 4 of the kids. Gosh, the Egyptian, Saudi, Iraqi, and Korean kid come for summer camp and to make up the English class they failed this year, and they get this. What a summer camp bonding experience, eh? They'll be best friends forever.

Ayman and I had this whole conversation outside my door. Because if I had let him in, which I would have done in other circumstances, the whole neighborhood would have talked. We both understood that he couldn't come in.

He's really cute, by the way. And all the single teachers at the school are after him (except for me.) He's the PE teacher who's a personal trainer at Lifestyles, the elite, $210 a month gym in Beirut. I'm not lying. $210 a month. Who can pay that in the U.S., much less in Lebanon? . . .I wonder how much they'll start charging now that the economy has gone to hell.