{"id":6127,"date":"2007-03-19T12:30:34","date_gmt":"2007-03-19T16:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=6127"},"modified":"2022-10-12T15:40:04","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T19:40:04","slug":"alexandria-karachi-and-joisey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=6127","title":{"rendered":"Alexandria, Karachi, and Joisey"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend alone I had in-depth touching conversations with 3 cab drivers (engaging cabbies is one of my favorite things to do – and it nearly always yields something interesting<\/a> – and sometimes, even, a big Armenian bear-hug under waving palm trees<\/a>)<\/p>\n

So. This weekend:<\/p>\n

One cabbie was from Egypt (Alexandria, to be exact) – and he was awesome. Very handsome too. He loves Alexandria and still has an apartment there – that looks right out on the beach. I asked him if he would rent it to me for a month. He gave me his card. We sat in the car with the motor running talking about the culture along the Nile and the different dialects of his country for about 5 minutes. He is my new best friend.<\/p>\n

One was from Jersey City and he treated me to a fascinating monologue about local politics, and the graft, and the mayors, and the old-school locals, and the zoning laws being ignored, and who paid off whom … and his monologue was not bitter. Or off-puttingly angry. It was humorous, detailed, and also pragmatic. I told him he should write a book.<\/p>\n

One was from Pakistan. He moved here 10 years ago and lives in Queens. He goes back to Pakistan to see his aged father about once a year, whenever he can. He misses Pakistan, but he loves America. He especially loves the beer. (I did not grill him for information. All I said was, “Do you like it here?” And out flowed his entire life story.) He is addicted to karaoke and we compared song lists. I asked, “Have you ever sung ‘Enter Sandman’? It seriously kicks ass as a karaoke song.” He said, “I will try it this Thursday!” We then began to sing together: “EN-TER NIIIIGHT TAKE MY-Y HAAAND OFFTONEVAHNEVAHLAND …” We were still singing when he pulled up to my destination.<\/p>\n

I wonder if it’s something about my face … this kind of exchange happens to me all the time<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend alone I had in-depth touching conversations with 3 cab drivers (engaging cabbies is one of my favorite things to do – and it nearly always yields something interesting – and sometimes, even, a big Armenian bear-hug under waving … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[1484],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6127"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180284,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6127\/revisions\/180284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}