A few weeks ago I traveled to Sharjah, a nearby emirate, for a quick overnight business trip. I arrived in the wee hours of the normal after a frantic day working in Qatar that ended only shortly before my one a.m. departure. I arrived, got into bed, and tried to sleep for the three hours I had before it was time to get up and get dressed. A shower made everything better but then bad news: the blue leather make up bag always at the bottom of my purse, at the ready for a powder touch up or lip liner redo was missing. I had switched bags before leaving for the airport and not even noticed that old blue didn’t make the transfer. This was a mounting crisis because earlier that night, upstairs, I deliberately bypassed the travel make up for the touch up set in old blue. An overnight, I reasoned, meant traveling light – something anyone who has seen me to the airport will tell you I have perfected.

No makeup was a crisis at eight a.m. because I was in the GCC. If I had been at the Frankfurt Book Fair, no problem. Bookworms in the west are supposed to be a little counter beauty culture and a fresh clean face with good credentials would have been acceptable. I wasn’t in Germany, however, but in the middle of the Arab world where women are expected to look, dress, and smell like the feminine people they are. I pulled myself together as best I could and went down to the hotel lobby. Luckily the gift store my travel blurry vision had taken in the night before was open; and they had makeup. Cheap, flaky, overpriced foundation that barely approached my skin tone and waxy lip pencil but it was better than nothing. I grudgingly paid too much for mascara, eye and lip liner, and lipstick; the foundation fell out of the compact and onto the mirror when I first opened it. Take it back only to find that it was the only one that was anywhere close to my skin tone without making me look ashy. Resigned, and insisting on a discount that the attendant informed me I had already received, I went to the taxi. The day went well and my presentation in the VIP room of the expo center went well. When I needed the makeup I used as back up all the time it wasn’t there – because I never consciously think about needing it.

I come home, wiped out, about twenty four hours after I had left. I go upstairs, get into bed, and sigh into our lush Egyptian cotton sheets. A luxury that rewards every one of the few minutes I’m home to enjoy them. At five forty five the next morning a sound like a jackhammer going into the foundation of our house woke my husband and I up. Before six a.m. in a Muslim country on a Friday was unheard of. Why were the guys working on their day off? The reason we could hear the work on the new hypermarket going up next to us – sure to complicate an already horrendous morning experience with even more traffic issues – was because while I was away the compound transitioned from generator power (which we had been on since May) to the city grid. The constant hum of the three generators that kept the lights on in all of our houses was gone. And with it any shield or white noise to balance out our friend the jackhammer user. I asked my husband to turn on the air-conditioning which provided a small but not as substantial cover and also put in earplugs. I could still faintly hear the noise – apparently they are fusing each of the bolts in that building with a solitary hammer on a hollow pipe – and I missed the generator.

We miss things that help us in our everyday lives but not until they are gone. I’ve tried to be more conscious of who and what help me through my day. Because one day I will be gone and I want to be missed.

During my year of no new clothes -- buying them for myself anyway -- I've tried to focus on using up anything that I have. The last month I noticed the row of perfume bottles on my dresser. Many of them were given to me as gifts by my female Qatari friends for birthdays, my PhD graduation, or new jobs (there have been three in the last five years). Needless to say I had no excuse for ever smelling like anything but roses. Fourteen bottles of chemical delight are more than any woman needs so I decided to share the designer love. My mother got the Cartier; a student the Dior; I confess to re-gifting a few here and there as the occasion required. I was not immune to the power of Duty Free after several trips with my students to other countries. One of the most purchased items on these excursion was invariably perfume.

I was feeling so good about using up the endless perfume supply and getting down to only four bottles that I even went ahead and bought myself a bottle at the tiny branch of Jo Malone at the Frankfurt airport. A few days ago however, disaster struck my plan. I was getting to the seemingly endless bottle of Narciso Rodriguez For Her when the top flew off, never to be seen again. Under the dresser to hide with buttons and dead skin cells, I contemplated the half empty bottle. The opaque pink surface did not give me any assurance I had done my best by the scent. I felt cheated when I threw the bottle away. Another dilemma: Chasmere by Donna Karan had a hole in the bottle from our house cleaner and I could see each time he came to visit a little more leaked out. I think I may go and douse myself later this weekend to put it and me out of our misery.

Using up things to their maximum before getting new ones is my new motto after this year of not buying clothes; the restraint has spilled over into many areas from shoes, bags, perfume, to cars. Today I was in the fourth car accident of my five years in Qatar. This one was not my fault; a young driver, no more than eighteen years old, sped into the roundabout in front of me. In a blink he was there and so was I. I gasped outloud at the smash.  I wasn't fiddling with the radio or my iTrip or my phone although these are all things I do everyday. In fact I had just reminded myself to focus only on driving when it happened. Of course my day was thrown off kilter and I will write later about the procedures one has to go through in Qatar to register a traffic accident.

But the impact made me realize that the last thing I need is a new car. I need old, old things so that when they are damaged or lost, I won't have regret but know that I fully used up something that I bought.

The 'bugy' as my car is known has been through it. A hazard of being owned by me.