I have not posted anything here for quite a while, and the reason for this is that I have started a public blog under my very own real name. Because this blog is still anonymous, I’m not going to post the URL here. Feel free to email me – countdowntothirty@gmail.com, for the link, if you’re interested. The new blog is about food, wine, whiskey, life in Israel, thoughts, photos, and all sorts of other things. Mainly about food and drink. Pretty pictures and the like.

Ciao!

Ms 30+

I am totally in awe of Crushpad. It’s brand-y new boutique DIY winemaking awesomeness.  They say they are democratizing the wine industry.  I say f*ck yeah!

In their own words:

Who is Crushpad anyway? Well, we’re a combination of wine industry veterans and technology industry refugees who want to liberate winemaking from the stereotype of the 5th generation wine family living on the chateau with the Golden Retriever. By bringing winemaking to the city, augmenting it with education and support, and taking care of the time-consuming parts, we want to enable anyone with a serious interest in wine to participate in the magic of winemaking.

Basically, you get to design and make your own wine online in collaboration with experts and advisors online. Monitor the growth in the vineyards online, participate in the harvest if you want,  choose your barrels, your fermentation techniques, everything. Here’s the very clear easy “how does it work” page.  Explains it better than I can.

And what’s even better? I learned about them through a joint twitter and charity initiative. For every bottle you buy of their 2009 “Fledgling” wine, pictured above, they donate $5 to Room to Read, a literacy program that brings books to extremely impoverished children around the world and whose motto is, “world change starts with educated children.” Here’s a link to a video on how this all works.

So, as I’m starting to “get” twitter more and more every day, I am awed at its ability to take on projects like this one.  Humanity.  The more things change…

There you go. I bought two Fledgling bottles for my parents. So should you!

A Post Secret

Sometimes I’ve almost slipped. Facebook and Twitter and Skype and all sorts of other networking status update tools have started feeling so natural.  I started wondering about social niceties and unspoken rules.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I did slip.  If I spoke some real truth, as opposed to the selected truth we use to build up our online and offline identities.  Even casually.

How would the world take it should an acquaintance type up (in 140 characters or less, of course): “Spent a couple hours masturbating this AM before heading to scrummy brunch. Mimosas and crisp bacon really completed my day ” OR “Off my meds, ate a whole pizza, can’t get out of bed, afraid I’m going over the edge” OR “I am so horny for my boss I am this far away from jumping him in the copy room” OR “XXX should just die!  Just jump off a cliff or have a good samaritain pull the trigger once and for all!” OR “Oh God I think I’m a lesbian!” OR “F*uck you world! Just f*ck you up the ass and around the corner and out your nose!”

Etc.  Not that these are in any way my confessions.

A Post Secret

Good grief, right?

Maybe not.  I have friends who are far more frank than I dare to be.  Not necessarily in very personal confessions, but rather in provocative links, daring allusions, vulgar or eye-opening or disgusting photos. Or even in their use of profanity, which I use rarely.

And the world certainly does have a need.  Ever heard of Post Secret? My sister is a new addict.  What started as an interesting contemporary art project (people sending in anonymous post cards spilling their secrets, compiled now into books), is something of an internet sensation. She reads posts on facebook, on the website, and even on twitter.  I think she’s even submitted.

By the light of the Hanukah Menorah my sister regaled me and a friend with tales of the anonymous who just had to reveal their sordid secrets to someone.  A woman was told her fiance was killed in Iraq only to find out later that he had married someone else.  Someone claiming to be a good person, not a racist in any way, finds Hitler irresistably sexy.  A woman admits to putting boogers in her husband’s food when she’s pissed off at him.  And it goes on and on.

Should we be more open and honest? Could this all really harm our online identities, or rather, our real identities? Some secrets protect. Some things may be best left unsaid. But what if you really feel like saying them? We have such a real need to be heard, especially about the things we find the most difficult to discuss.

Image from the Post Secret book

I’m just saying. They say the truth can set you free. Maybe it provides some relief.  But in this world, unless you have a stone facade, are totally confident with your situation, and are perhaps even independently wealthy, the truth seems to be a luxury.  I wish it were the case that the world would come together more, that friends would be more compassionate to each other, that we would push to become our better selves, in light of all this honesty.  We are all human – fallible, petty, hurt horny vindictive bastards.

But no.

Who would hire a bitchy bipolar bisexual Baptist? Any takers? Didn’t think so.  But that’s totally not me.  I’m Jewish, after all…

Two very significant events of the day.

1) I was surveyed by an official of the government.  And it was the law.  I had a legal obligation to take a “community survey” or who knows, I could have gone to jail.  Questions like, what is your religious bservance, are you happy with the cleanliness of your neighborhood, do you think buses should run on the sabbath, are you happy in your career, do you rent, do you make enough money, who do you turn to in crisis, etc, etc, etc.  This lady stalked me for a couple of weeks.  Really.  I was 1 out of 10,000 chosen, and she told me to think of it as an honor — I represent at least 200 other people in my exact situation.  Why not be counted?

2) I had my first girls’ wine night.  Italians.  It was really really fun.  And as I’m writing now a bit sloshed, it was a good night indeed.  We opened a Valpolicella, a Nero D’Avola, and  super-Tuscan 100% Cabernet Sauvignon.  North, South and Middle.  It was awesome.  Rather new friends of mine from the winery we all work for.  Amazing palates, good cheese and veg, fun conversation, and excellent wine.  The first was like a perfect midway between a Pinot Noir and a Chianti.  The second (Sicilian) was like a Syrah but more robust, if you can say that, with just a gorgeous complexity.  The third was a real true blue Cabernet Sauvignon.  Smelled like one, looked like one, tasted like one (but not as strong as it could have been).  For Italy, amazing.

Oh, boys and girls, tomorrow I’ve got yoga.  And my therapist.  And more work to do.  And dishes to wash.  And cats to feed.  It never ends.  Never.

I met a man very briefly at a tiny cafe-sandwich bar.  A sci-fi nut like myself, although I tend to be quite closeted, coupled with the fact that you can’t really see it on me.  I visited his profile on facebook after we friended each other.  He had a quotation attributed to Yoda from Star Wars:

Do, or do not.  There is no try.

So plain.  So simple.  It has helped me to think of this.  I am entirely responsible.

I just watched the documentary Imagine: John Lennon.  People kept saying today, “it’s hard to believe it was 29 years ago…”  Well, for most people I know, it’s not hard to imagine.  It was the majority of my life.  John Lennon died when I was a year and a half old.  Despite this, I feel like he has always been a part of my life.  Not personally.  The music, the intention, the stories.  Life.

Throughout this film I saw (and it was very good, hardly any narrative, lots of stock video, home video, interviews, concert footage…extremely impressive), John was the joker, the wisecracking nut, and very straightforward.  His point was quite clear: he was living his life for himself.  Not for fans.  He knew he had influence.  But his life, his actions, deeds, writing, singing, was his own.  An interesting scene – a drifter, who knows if he was homeless, psychotic, something, stalks Lennon’s estate – must have been the mid-seventies.  This man believed John was singing to him.  That there was some cosmic importantance.  That meeting him would effect something.  John said flat out, when he sings, how could he possibly sing to this man he didn’t know – he barely thought at all – maybe about a good shit he passed that morning, or about Yoko if it’s a love song. Nothing more.  Nothing more.

It just triggered the thought in me – a thought I’ve had a few times before – we’re all real people. Simple people.  Small people.  Often frightened people.  Whether the president of a big country, a talented musician, a successful businessman, or a working class stiff, a waitress, a student, a bum.  Every moment is only our own.  What we make of it.  And most spend it in distraction – the radio in the car, the sitcom after dinner, the movies, even the novel before bed.  Things to take us away from the moment.  Sometimes these things are good.  Institutions, for instance.  If we were to recognize how small and scared and vulnerable each politician was, how governments, banks, transportation systems, are collections of mere mortals like ourselves, it would scare the hell out of us.  Bureaucracies.   Red tape.  Paper work.  Receptionists.  Stumbling blocks.  Locked doors.  Detours.  Distractions.  Because it’s all such a house of cards.  Children we all are really.  And we’re trying to ignore this fact.

No life ever lived is more or less important that John Lennon’s.  I want to believe that.  But no.  His was.  What he made of it was.  But he was living just like the rest of us.  Breakfast lunch dinner.  Sex arguments frustration. Love lawns boats fish.  Some of us just distract ourselves by looking at others.

Pulsing colors, heat waves, mind slowing down, going deep, ripples running all through the body.  Almost a drug-induced far out trip, you might say.  But no.  I just got back from my new weekly meditation class.

I honestly never thought I would get all that much out of meditating with a class of people.  After today, I am convinced the human mind is much more exceptionally powerful than we know.  It’s the mind after all that reacts to drugs when we take them.  It’s also the mind that creates sexual climaxes.  We are so wrapped up in our everyday lives, routine, and even our intellectual pursuits – allowing the mind to work a small percentage of minor cogs and gears – when we are capable of doing a lot more.

I was thinking about the Heart Sutra before class started, about how everything is emptiness.  Nothing exists.  And while meditating, all of a sudden, I saw an image of a vessel, like a jug, full of water.  The water would evaporate, then condense, over and over again.  I was somewhere hovering, in the vapor, outside the vessel, then in the vessel.  Then I was the vessel.  I became a void.  Then I became whole again.  Energy streamed out of my body.  Then back in.  Incredible.

After the class, I learned that I was wrong.  Totally wrong.  If you can even be wrong while you meditate.  Can you believe that?  The point of this Nepalese Zen-like dharma meditation is to disassociate from thoughts.  Be blank.  Allow the thoughts that stream by to stream by, and learn to let them go, not think the thoughts, not let you take them away.  Apparently, focusing on an image is a diffferent stream of meditation entirely, completely on the other side of the spectrum from this one, and a more “superficial” variety.  Because an image is in its way, a thought.  And it’s easy to focus on one thing than to focus on nothing.

I get it.  But I am a little disappointed.  I had a really powerful experience.  A once in a lifetime physically moving experience.  And I got to it by meditating incorrectly.  Yes, I know there is no such thing as “wrong.”  I relaxed so much.  I felt good.  Focused.  Physically at peace.  Isn’t that the point of meditating?  I really wanted to go back and do it again.  But what’s the deal with method?  Why is it so wrong to meditate in different way?

I don’t know.  Any ideas folks?  Buddhists out there?  Meditators?

It’s raining a storm here in Tel Aviv.  A good night.  Even though I got there “the wrong way.”

I worked on a Saturday, even though I told myself I wouldn’t. I’m a few hours short, a few many hours, and as I am technically an independent contractor for my bread and butter work, every minute counts.

(It’s raining hard again!)

Spent a fair amount of time monitoring Twitter.  Still not sure how everything works, but I suspect it’s so simple, that I’ve made it complicated in my head.  As these things go.

The major Twit-citement of my day was the hullabaloo around Rebecca Woodhead.  She’s a mega-twitter-er, award-winning, I think, at that.  She’s using twitter (among other things) to promote her writing, find an agent, and get published.  Such a prolific and well-known twitter-er she is, that several celebrities, including Stephen Fry (my favorite of faves) follows her.  She got lots of attention at yesterday’s Follow Friday with @stephenfry recommending her.  So, I noticed.  Being a fellow unpublished-as-yet writer, I love her mission.  So, please check out:

@rebeccawoodhead‘s twitter page

Check out Rebecca’s blog

Sign her “twitition” to get published

And listen to this wonderful interview with her on BBC Radio:

Lastly, enjoy this video. I love Improv Everywhere!

Watched this week’s “Biggest Loser” that I recorded earlier. Not bad. I like eating apple pie and ice cream while the contestants weigh in.

Recovering from a long day of leading wine tastings at a gourmet grocers. Feet hurt. But sold a very decent amount. 10 2005 Syrahs. 2 2004 Merlots. 1 Brut. 1 Cab. 4 young Cabs. 1 single vineyard Syrah. Not too shabby for a grocers. Love the fine wine. It’s a pleasure to get to open those expensive bottles.

And I think it will still take me some time to wrap my head around Twitter. Today they’ve got Follow Fridays. You apparently suggest people, friends, that you think others should follow. I’m not sure if there’s an honor thing going on…something about you then following everyone that is suggested to you, dutifully. There must be dozens if not hundreds of suggestions. What if I don’t want to follow people that I don’t find interesting? Is a side-goal of twitter to establish meaningful relationships with new people? No idea.

Going off to a contemporary dance performance at the Susan Dellal Center. Awe-some.

Nighty night.

In short, I went to yoga today for the first time in a long time at a studio I found near my home, and it was absolutely amazing. Loved it. Great teacher, great class, long class (2 hours!), interesting techniques, and CHEAP! AND…

I haven’t felt this good physically in months and months and maybe years! My back feels loose, my spine feels strong and flexible, my thighs are strong and it’s just fantastic.

And I was a nervous paranoid depressed loser of a bag of bones and flesh only moments before…and now look at me!

An old man in tweed and cardigan stopped me on the street today and told me, “you are hot-blooded, you can just see it on you, so alive…”

Can you believe that! Someone said that! And they said it to me!

G’night all! Whew, two minutes to spare!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I only joined twitter a few weeks ago.  I’ve known what it was for some time but decided to keep my distance.  Announcing your status, interests, favorite everythings minute by minute just seemed silly.  Facebook was addicting enough for me at its peak last year.

But now, I don’t know.  I guess I was lonely.  Or depressed.  Or lost.  Or all of these things in varying degrees.  And I needed something fun to keep me glued to the computer so I could get work done.

Seen this video?

So, I got active.  Very active.  From less than 10 tweets ever, I’ve tweeted 61 times in three days.  Or is twittered?  Twooted?  Who cares. For the sake of doing it, I learned how to send a tweet from my cell phone.  How’s that for modern?  Ee gad.  I still don’t know how to “work it” on twitter.  Don’t know how I’m supposed to get people to follow me, or if I should aim to follow more people than follow me, or vice versa.  Or if it’s a healthy thing to follow celebrities, or if it’s just a waste of time.  Or if you can interact with the people you follow but who don’t know who you are.  I’m going to drop it.  I’ll figure it out, I guess.

I’ve also discovered an online radio social network which allows you to be your own DJ, add infinite songs to your playlist, tweet, gain followers, and give “props” to other DJ’s.  There’s probably other applications like it, but the one I’ve found, really like, and have been using is called Blip.fm.  Check it out. I’m listening to a duet now by Kylie Minogue and Kermit the Frog.

The music, the updates, it’s made life a little more interesting. At least for the last couple days.  My life tends to change so drastically week by week these few months.  I had a wine class twice per week, very time consuming, for just under two months.  Then it stopped leaving a huge gap.  Then Thanksgiving came, which took a couple weeks of planning and an intense three days of cooking.  Then nothing.  On the work front, one of my clients had a ton and a half of work for me for two events that took place a week apart.  And now nothing form her.  And now I’ve got a new client and some more, very different, work to do.  I feel very anchorless. And very alone.

When do I get to do what I want to do?  Well, almost anytime, if I made it priority.   It’s hard.  It’s really hard.  That’s why I’m trying to create a a daily and hourly schedule.  School, university, intense desk jobs, theatre directing work, are all incredibly structured, and at those I was very successful.  No kidding.  At adult life, I’m not. Not at all.

So, if twitter and blip.fm and probably dozens more applications I’ll discover this week make life more lively while I try to pick myself up yet again, yet again, why the hell not.  Why the hell now.  Having the music is energizing, if anything.  I forgot how much I love music.  And how little I listen to it these days.  Perhaps a live jazz outing once a week should get penciled into the schedule?  Perhaps, perhaps…

Enjoy this gorgeousness: