Day 0: A Slice of Paradise

Dear Readers:

Thank you for following along with me on this roller coaster of a mish-moshy blog.  Today, I have reached the end of my countdown.  Yes, that’s right.  It’s my birthday!  And all is well.  I’m having a wonderful day.

What I am a bit misty over is the fact that this blogging journey has come to an end.  At least in this capacity.  This year this blog has been a saving grace.  I hadn’t realized it at the time, but the blog was so much a part of the process — the aging, reflection, creative, destructive, manic, depressive whirlwind that is my life process — that turning 30 was for me.  I’m going to miss it.

The party, in brief

At the party last night, which was fabulous (lots of people, all the people I had really wanted to come, realistically speaking, came — we had bbq chicken and sausages, quinoa salad, guac, hummus, tahini, salads galore, funky organic chips, four French cheeses and grapes and crackers, soooo much wine it was coming out of everyone’s ears, add sangria to that and add vodka-fresh watermelon punch to that, and then a gorgeous hazelnut chocolate mousse cake at midnight with champagne popping…ahhh…it was perfect), a few people came up to me and said that after turning 30 they realized how much of a relief it was.  A real load off.  The anxiety gone.  Another perfect decade to have fun and create and build and enjoy and grow and transform in.  It’s cliche, but yes, life is indeed beginning at 30 these days.

And today?  Oh, today.

Morning

I awoke and immediately opened my presents.  A modest yet touching collection of trinkets.  Lots of books and interesting design-y elements.  Then my sister and 2 friends and I went to have brunch at the most wonderful restaurant called Manta Ray, right on the beach in southern Tel Aviv, very close to the border with Jaffa.  I had a “Mr Crunchy” – a very croque monsieur-esque cooked sandwich with an Israeli touch — grilled eggplant — to go along with the crunchy ham and the heavenly melted cheese on eggy sweet challah bread, all topped with Rocket salad and cherry tomatoes.  My sister had the pancakes, a rarity here in Israel, cooked American-style, with lovely sweet peach slices on top and a dollop of creme fraiche.  My friends had salads (very Israeli), and scrambled eggs, and we all shared some trout ceviche and freshly baked breads and bagels with a seletion of jams, compotes, cheeses, olives, and whipped butter.  Ah, heaven.

Afternoon…

…was spent shopping at only one store, and thank goodness for that.  I had wanted to wander Tel Aviv, but I hadn’t anticipated the fatigue from last night (we went to bed after 4 am), and the slight hangover (I’m seriously surprised it wasn’t infinitely worse, quite frankly), along with the unbearable mid-day heat.  So we went to the one place I love to shop: Liligrace.  It’s small boutique with just gorgeous, unique, special clothes at very reasonable prices.  A very mini-H&M, homestyle, run by the two sweetest ladies.  See, my sister and I discovered this shop on her birthday, almost 6 months ago to the day.  AND it just happened to be only the 2nd day that this store was in business.  We were some of their very first customers.  So, we kept coming back.  The prices and the styles are just too good to be true.  AND every time I went back, I brought new friends.  It’s a loyalty thing.  I feel special regarding our little coincidence with the birthdays and the store opening and them being so nice and all, you know.  So, of course, of course, this was the only place I would consider going to, if I could only pick one store to shop at on my birthday.  Period.  AND I came out with some excellent loot, at a kind discount as well, for being the birthday girl.  Two dresses, one of them quite dressy and very funky indeed (Japanese meets European), and two very unique shirts.  I feel like a princess when I come out of Liligrace.  I really do.  Visit, if you’re ever in Tel Aviv.  On Dizingof between Ben Gurion and Arlozorov on the eastern side of the street.

Evening…

That’s broaching on right now.  We’ve been napping for a couple hours.  Thank goodness.  We’ll probably have some leftovers for dinner… I can’t believe how much food is left.  Maybe we’ll even bbq again.  Afterward, the plan is to meet up with my family for the “family birthday event.”  You know, obligatory time with grandma, potentially awkward moments with teenage cousins, the works.  I’ve decided to minimize the potential weirdness by opting out of a typical dinner…and just doing dessert and drinks…at a fabulous cafe, 10 Idelson.  I’m expecting world-class cake.  And no more than an hour with my crazy grandma.  And I’m bringing a friend as well which should act as a buffer against potential explosions.  Yes, it should be great.  Tonight?  No idea.  Tel Aviv has crazy parties and night clubs and the like, but I’m so not into that.  I’d rather take in a movie at home.  Hang out.  Sounds nice, doesn’t it?  Yes I think so.

The future

You will still find me editing my novel (will be sent to agents and publishers by the end of summer, I declare!), job hunting (or working at a new job very soon I hope…touch wood), pondering the meaning of life and breathing through countless existential dilemmas, enjoying Tel Aviv, debating living in Israel, analysing oddities, watching Star Trek, traveling the world, writing, thinking, examining, dreaming, breathing, being, and of course cooking a ton and drinking a lot of wine.

I will be starting a new blog very soon.  I have captured some good domain names, and I’ll let you know here how to find me.

Thank you so much for coming along on this ride.  I will miss it.  And I will miss you.

3 Days: Hair stressed

I’m getting my hair cut in about an hour and a half.  Good to do before a birthday.  New look.  Lose some weight.  And, I know why I’m going, in general terms.  I’m again suffocating under heavy curls, although my bob is considered fairly short. Thing is, I always get a bit freaked out about my “look.”  When curls are cut well, hair really rocks out.  When not, you’re a frizzy nightmare.  So much of everyday confidence comes from looking decent. I really like my hairdresser, but I’m often at a loss of what to tell her…”um, uh, please make me feel like a goddess every morning when I wake up and run my fingers through my hair…”? Right.

Let me take you through a little gallery of cuts I’ve had and mostly enjoyed.  I love the internet.  This was so not possible a few years ago.

An approximate look of a cut that I sported, off and on, from age 25-27.  Edgy, chic, very “I’m young and artistic and work in PR”:

This is what I tend to look like today, on a very very good day. A bit fluffier and full on the cheeks:

Now, I’d love to go for something like this…and you’re probably saying that this looks just like the others and pretty standard, but to us curly heads, it’s different enough.  Then again, I’ll let you in on a secret: this style would never work on a daily basis.  Why?  First, the obvious, I’m not a luscious blond.  Second, her hair does not look naturally all that curly, and I see evidence of a curling iron…oh well.  Here’s to hoping:

Lastly, I think this is what I want.  I loved this cut.  I can certainly pull it off.  I think.  Perfect layers.  I think I may be ready to get rid of the “much shorter in back, much longer in front” thing, and go for something a little more cohesive.  If there was a celebrity whose hair was similar to mine, it might very well be Sarah Jessica Parker.  Even though I’m a brunette.  She’s got thick hair, messy curls that are sometimes more wavy, depending on length.

Now, here’s hoping my stylist has internet at her salon…

4 Days: Asking for help…

I put together two of these this week...

I’ve now heard variations of it three times in the last day.  Moving house is potentially the greatest source of stress and anxiety, second only to death in the family.  I’m doing OK, but with my possessions littered all over Tel Aviv and a party in three days, I’m trying my damndest to stay calm.

But I’m not doing too much.  All I’ve done today is put this together:

The smallest computer desk in creation...only 60 cm wide!

Seems simple, right?  Wrong.  Took two hours.  Oh well.  It’s done.  I’m not entirely inept.  Not entirely.

I had planned to go back to my old place today and pack up all what’s left and clean a bit in preparation for tomorrow night when I’m again borrowing a car and perhaps some friends to help me lift things.  But I cannot be bothered. Do you know just how hot it is in Tel Aviv?

And speaking of asking for help… Gretchen Rubin again has a great article on HuffPo on the topic.  I’ve not been closely following her happiness project, but every time I’ve visited the “living” section, her insights are always wonderful and often helpful.  This article raises a really interesting point: if you want to become closer with someone, give them the opportunity to help you.  And I’m really not good at that.  Asking for help.  Accepting a lot of it.  I feel beholden.  I feel bad.  Then again, I love helping others.  If I help and help and help, without allowing others to return the favor, perhaps it’s been a major flaw in my character these past 12 years of my adulthood, or so.

Asking for help is a sign of trust.  In helping others, I prove to be trustworthy.  But in not asking for help, I only prove to myself that I am wary of trusting others.

That said, if you know me, if you’re coming to my party, I will try to delegate the tasks necessary to prepare.  I seriously want an easy birthday, so it should be easy to ask for help, right?  Let’s hope.

Now… to prove I’ve not entirely wasted my day, I’m going to finish unpacking the last suitcase I have here (more to come tomorrow, might as well make the house as unpacked and clean as possible beforehand), go back to the hardware store (the desk lamp I purchased does not work), and maybe even go to the grocery store to buy food and supplies for the party…so I don’t have to have a heart attack about it on Wednesday and Thursday.  Right?  Right.  Onward and upward!  Yeah!

7 Days: Could’ve Been Goa

Life just never seems to slow down…

It’s officially the last week of my 20′s.  Wow.  You know, I think I’m ready.  Well, you have to be.  But it’s OK.  Really.  It’s getting a bit easier to have a good time.  Really.

Today — I started out with another wine tasting — this time at a big theatre in Tel Aviv for an event, an awards ceremony for PR professionals, of all things (my former profession, one of them, stateside). I served 400 people the Gamla Sangiovese 2006.  A very decent cup a joy.

Then I joined friends for an impromptu late-weekend-breakfast at a city center bistro.

Then I went home for the flash of an eye…before going to a friend of a friend’s beachside birthday party…which turned out to be more like…hanging out with some way-too-mellow beach bums, doing close to nothing.  Ya.  But I warmed to the idea.  Finally.  Because it was so incredibly beautiful.  Just before sunset.  On what for Israel is an exceptionally empty beach.  It could have been Goa.  Seriously.  Wide expansive beach with small dunes.  Tents and tarps set up here and there with straw mats and mattresses and tables laden with comfort food and bottles of beer and arak.  I didn’t have a swim suit (silly me wore a dress and jewelry thinking it’s a Friday night birthday party…), but I was convinced by the crowd and borrowed a spare pair of swimming bottoms from the bday girl, and I went in my bra… And the water was warm and calm and soothing… And absolutely NO jellyfish, usually a complete bummer for Israeli beach summers which makes it close to impossible to go into the water.  It was liberating.  I have always wanted to go swimming and prancing about in my underwear.  It’s really different than with a bathing suit.  Something about it not supposed to be seen usually.  And I felt pretty.  Really pretty.

Age is pretty irrelevent.  Life goes on.  Always goes on.  And despite it not being “productive” I had a pretty full and pleasant day.  And I discovered  a pocket of Israel that looks just like Goa.  Where you can relax.  And simply be.

Something to chew on.   As we’re looking at “one week…”  A week of food for folks all over the world.

12 Days: Not noticed

Funny how I no longer have to think about how many days until my birthday. It’s incredibly close.

A free pass…
My therapist recommended I give myself a free pass these coming two weeks. This blog has in many ways helped quell my anxiety over turning 30 (which is really about the larger issues confronting the fear I encounter daily, confronting the expectations I have for myself compared to what I have actually accomplished, etc). I fully expect to feel either a complete “let down” at this build up, or on the other hand, feel exhilarated and liberated over turning 30. I don’t expect to feel sad or especially depressed on the day of my birthday or the day after. I know I will be fine. On the other hand, I have artificially built up this day. Counting down to something highlights it in a way that it would not have been before. And a 30th birthday highlight enough in anyone’s life. So…I’m to give myself a break…I may feel worthless, depressed, anxious, scared, and who knows…maybe even some overinflated good things…in the 12 days I have left. And that’s OK. Wow, 12 days “I have left.” Dead man walking, indeed.

Community – the clincher
Whether it be Ross, Rachel, Chandler, and Monica at the Central Perk, the office mates by the coffee machine, your college sorority, your band camp buddies, or (gasp) even your tiny dysfunctional nuclear family – community is everything. Everything. And I know I’ve lacked it in a substantial way since moving to Israel. However, what I didn’t know is how strong an effect this has had on the fabric of my life. When we don’t have a routine (work = the same people depending on you doing a task every day; family = washing dishes and laundry and helping each other with essential basics; friends: comfort and support from ordinary things like a weekly cup a joe) it’s very difficult, and for me nearly impossible, to get anything done. I am terrible at self discipline, as you would know if you’ve read any of my past posts here. This is a sort of catch 22 situation, as this is almost impossible to achieve without help…but I can’t get the everyday help of a support system without working at it… All in all, the longer you are alone, the harder it is to find and “fit into” a group. And the longer you are alone, the more difficult everything is in life.

Being seen
What is that crucial element of being in an integral group? It doesn’t matter if it’s work or friends or family or a social niche of some sort. What all of these things have in common is that each member is required to notice the others and be noticed in exchange. It lends itself to caring for others, and in turn being cared for. It’s why the word network is so appropriate. A web, with one strand connected to many others, supporting many others, while being supported by many others. The fewer strands, the weaker the web. The more strands, the stronger everyone is.

Being alone means that on a regular basis there are many fewer people noticing me, caring about me, depending on me, than ever before. When I had an interesting and fairly important job, I was needed on many levels and many people needed me. The more friends I had, the more natural it became to see them regularly, to depend on them regularly, and for them to depend on me.

And the fact that I am now aware that I am not being thought about, that I am not being seen, kind of really hurts. It’s another perspective to the shape of my life. It makes me want to create community, and create one in a hurry. Applying to a doctoral program sounds pretty darned great. Not necessarily for the career or interest motivations. But for there being a lot of the kind of people I tend to gravitate towards, around me a lot. I don’t know if this is a good answer. But seeing my situation in this light…feels funny. I know I have friends all over the world. Some of them great friends. Really great friends. But the fact that we have no common routine, no common rituals, means that we do not spend much of any time thinking about each other with any regularity. And that sucks.

It means I need to make a huge effort, perhaps a very difficult and un-fruitful effort at first, to surround myself, and to find a way to regularly include friends. Calling people every other week, getting together once or twice a month, is not going to cut it. Because I’m drowning here. I’m having trouble finding work, finishing my editing, even identifying who it is that I am anymore, with my being alone so much of the time. And I don’t want my 31st birthday to be spent wondering if anyone is going to show up at my party. I want to know it’s going to be great, whatever happens. I want to be such a good and dependable friend to others that I will have that support in turn.

Now if only I didn’t “like and enjoy” being alone so damned much…

30 Days: Decadent Decade

Decadence (noun)  The act or process of falling into an inferior condition or state; deterioration; decay: Some historians hold that the fall of Rome can be attributed to internal decadence.

Roman Decadence - something to aspire to?

Admittedly, I try to spice up my blog headlines.  Alliteration, fun words, things with a ring to them.  You know the deal.  You clicked through.  Decadent Decade sounded nice.  Decadent, with the meaning of “unrestrained or excessive self-indulgence,” a sub-definition.  Like, “I’d had a really, really good time these past few years.”  Yeah right.  The main definition fits, though.  Decay.  As we age, we decay.  But have I fallen into an inferior condition?  I’m not sure.  I’d like to think I’ve improved.  That’s not always the case, but I’m certain I’ve had an exceptionally interesting life.  That can’t be bad.

Here I am — the last month of my 20′s.  You have to stop and wonder where it went.   So, let’s have it.  The bizarre, anxious, international adventures of me.  Birthdays from 1999-2009.  Where did the time go?

• 20th birthday (1999): popular upscale Italian restaurant with two college friends and my parents after spending a quiet day at home in Skokie and roaming Evanston — I remember taking at least 30-60 minutes with my friends just watching the dogs playing at the dog beach by Northwestern University.  I’d had a birthday party a couple days before at my summer sublet apartment in Hyde Park.  It was so hot, I told people not to bring gifts, just to bring electric fans…three to five friends, no more,  sat around in the dark on the wood floor drinking cold beer, eating hors d’oeuvres and salads, with several fans rotating around us.  I wasn’t too happy about it.  But it was kind of an adventure.
• 21st birthday (2000): one of the worst.  Israel, after having backpacked for a month or more across Europe starting in Ireland to get there without taking to the air…last leg was taking a ferry from Greece into Haifa.  My birthday fell on last day or two of bad food poisoning got in Jerusalem from bad meat, and I was still on a liquid diet.  A good friend was visiting from Ireland, and she was flying out at 4 am or so.  At midnight, we ate a gelatin-mold “cake” with a matchstick as a candle.  She left for the airport.  I spent the day wandering Tel Aviv in the sweltering heat, miserable that I was alone, that I couldn’t eat, that this was supposed to be the one, real adulthood, the drop dead best party.  And I was staring at feral cats in a dodgy area while getting sunstroke on a park bench.  The queen of self-pity.  The one good thing: my “adoptive family” in Ireland had given me a gift, something in a small square jewelry box from Brown Thomas, tres chic and special, tied with two long satin ribbons, with the instructions that I was to open it only on my birthday.  I carried that box with me through more than ten countries.  It was really a moment when I got to open it.  A fine elegant silver bracelet.  I’ll remember it always.  And now that I think of it, I was ever so glad not to have been alone at midnight.  She was a very kind soul.
• 22nd birthday (2001): I was in a training week in rural Michigan to be a summer camp counselor and drama specialist.  The kids hadn’t arrived yet, and we, the 21-25 year old instructors had bonded a lot.  They sang for me, gave me a cake, novelty gifts, and we probably drove out to the country road and the nearest gas station for a cold beer.  I felt really safe and loved.  I was wary before of being with strangers, but it turned out to be one of the best birthdays, ever.
• 23rd birthday (2002): Rural Delaware, after a year of living a bizarre half-life amongst people twice to three times my age, picking myself up after being dreadfully lost following graduation the year before.  And I knew I was leaving less than a month later for London.  Had just created and run a drama camp and was in the midst of a radio producing/editing storm.  There was an elegant dinner that I cooked, and all of my 50 year old friends were there.  I remember wearing a cornflower-blue Provencal-style flowing dress and sitting at the head of the table in a grand dining room in my cousin’s Victorian house where I lived.  Everyone there gave me a bit of advice.  I don’t remember much of any of it.  But it was a good day.  And then I left for London.
• 24th birthday (2003): London.  A semi-dodgy East-End neighborhood called Leyton.  Was a cook and barmaid in the City all summer.  Subleased a room that turned out to be a caravan – yes, a caravan, like a tiny motor home – in the garden of a standard semi-detached row-house.   Because it was a corner lot, the garden was in a “L” shape, and there was ample room for the caravan, which was covered in ivy and colorful sweet smelling flowers and had a nice wooden deck built out from it on one side onto a small stream or creek.  The house was full of travelers: Aussies, Kiwis, S.Africans, Canadians – and for the summer, I was one of them.  It was a great time.  I decided on having as real a garden party as I could create in the late afternoon and through the night.  I baked real scones and pies and cakes and probably some other savory things.  All my “flatmates” were there, and several people from my MFA course came as well.  Someone brought out a spliff at the end of the evening.  I’m almost embarrassed to admit it now, but I’d hooked up with a guy at a friend’s party the night before, and he had come as well.  It was awkward, like “who is he,” but also kind of nice to have someone to flirt with.  Good fun.
• 25th birthday (2004): Skokie.  Party in the garden.  Lots of pretty cakes that I’d baked, salads, casseroles, barbecue.  Old friends.  My parents.  My best from from Delaware flew in.  Friends of my parents, too.  A sunny evening.  I had just been hired at a big art museum, my first big real job after graduating from London, after searching for more than three months for work.  I wore my red embroidered tunic from Bangkok, the one I thought was so elegant yet comfortable.  It was a decent day.  There’s some video of me introducing each of the cakes I made in great excited detail.
• 26th birthday (2005): Chicago, a local bar close to my apartment.  I “held court” and friends came by for several hours.  My sister was there visiting and stayed with me the whole time.  I paid for platters of appetizers.  People got their own drinks.  It wasn’t great.  Not too many people came.  It was awkward.  But I had my sister.  The next day was my real birthday, and my family met us at the Chicago Diner, a vegetarian restaurant with great brunch.  We sat in the back patio area, had seitan scrambles, wheat grass and beet shakes, and they showered me with presents.  The biggie was a briefcase from my dad.  My mother had gotten me tons of trinkets from her recent trip to Korea and China.  My sister and I then went to a Korean public bath and I paid for us both to enjoy the sauna, steam room, whirlpools, and body scrubs – a tiny old Korean woman wearing lacy undies and bra scraping us with incredible gusto with something like steel wool and regular green soap, gray clumps of skin falling off everywhere.  It hurt.  But it was fabulous.  Then my parents took the two of us out to a very fancy Italian restaurant in Evanston.   It was a fun few days.  Good memories.
• 27th birthday (2006): Chicago, a friend’s huge gorgeous brownstone house and garden in the amazing Old Town neighborhood. Because I was living at my parents’ place (I knew I wanted to move to Israel – gave up my apartment), she had volunteered her house to use.  My middle sister was again visiting, and she and I cooked all day long.  And then almost nobody showed up.  It was a nightmare.  The hostess got moody in the middle of the party and holed up on her own.  She and some of my friends did not get along.  At the end of it all we were all kind of pissed off and being passive aggressive and it wasn’t a nice scenario in the kitchen cleaning up afterward.  I felt horrible that I had cooked so much, went to so much trouble, and so few people showed.  And I was even more on edge and sad and embarrassed that this had happened not at my own place, and that I had troubled someone else over the whole thing.  On top of it all, I remember feeling anxiety that I was officially in my “late 20s.”  Scared that I was old and unaccomplished.  Despite the job.  Despite the theatre I had done in the last two years.  I missed my sisters in Tel Aviv.  I wanted to live authentically.  Do something just for me.  And do it with courage.  It was just a disappointing stressful evening that was out of my control.
• 28th birthday (2007): back in Chicago.  I had just come back from 6 months in Israel where I’d written the bulk of my novel.  I was working a temp job in Evanston at a corporate beauty school of all places.  Saving up to go back to Israel in the fall after a good friend’s wedding.  I decided I did NOT want to cook for my own birthday and specifically did not want to bake my own cake for yet another year.  My parents, rather my dad, did me the honor of smoking a few gorgeous slabs of ribs and making a cake.  The cake kind of fell apart on him, and I did end up “fixing” it so it could be eaten.  But that’s OK.  Many of my friends came, almost all were couples (a first..being the only singleton at your own party), and two brought cakes, and we had a glorious dinner.  The day of my birthday, my parents took me back to that super fancy Italian restaurant in Evanston.  They gave me men’s socks and movie vouchers.  That part really sucked.  I had asked for and expected an ipod.   I was really upset.  I shouldn’t have been, but I was.  It was the only thing I wanted.  I asked for the cheapest one, a shuffle.  I could have bought it myself.  And they took me out for this mega-expensive meal, several hundred dollars worth…and they gave me socks and movie tickets.  Good lord.
• 29th birthday (2008): Tel Aviv.  Took half a day off work from my internet startup job.  Bought a dress.  Got a massage.  Bought some nice face products.  Went to the beach.  Ate a whole plate of fries and drank a beer.  Waited for friends.  A few came.  Then we walked together to an Ethiopian restaurant.  More friends met us there.  Had the whole place to ourselves and sat in their outdoor section.  Shared a bottle of wine.  Laughed.  Someone pulled out a joint.  Even though we were in “public” it was so secluded…kind of fun.  After dinner it was late…we walked up to the incredible art studio of a friend’s friend.  Hung out.  Then the guy I was dating took me home.  We messed about.  And we broke it off the next day.  Sad.  But only bittersweet.  We stayed friends.  An OK birthday.  I planned well for the “disappointment fact” by doing things I enjoyed…a massage, the beach.

So there we have it.  A decade of birthdays.  Three countries.   Lots of cake.  Lots of barbecue.  Lots of Italian food for some reason.  Good friends.  It’s funny.  I end up feeling so disappointed – not enough people came, things didn’t go according to plan, my parents were assholes – and the like.  But the memory doesn’t last long term.  Even my crappy 21st birthday.  I can laugh about it now.  Like I’m consoling my younger former self.

Trends and stuff that I can learn from: garden parties/barbecues predominate.  Well, it’s summer, why not.  The best birthday of the lot may have been with semi-strangers/new friends in rural Michigan.  I had low expectations, so I suppose that when it turned out to be great fun, it was more than fun for me.  It was miraculously good.  The worst birthdays were when I was alone, had high expectations, and/or was disappointed by parents or myself.  So what can I learn from all this?  Outdoor parties work, try not to expect much – maybe with the goal being to have a laid back fun time myself, and make sure a definite number of people can and will be there to help out (and so I’m not perceiving myself to be “alone”).  Taking care of “me time” is also a good idea.  A massage goes a long way.  Right?  Right.  I think I’m on the right track for this coming birthday.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

Queen of Sheba Cake - one of my faves to make and to eat

31 Days: Mourning. Birthday. Boobs.

It’s the FINAL COUNTDOWN!

My birthday is exactly a month away!

But in all seriousness.  I’m more busy and less busy than expected.  Very excited and brushing lethargy.  Is it where I expected to be this week?  More or less.  I accept the paradox that is my life.  I’m stressing, job hunting, being lazy, watching too much The Office, and not editing my book…but also spending quality time with my sister, networking, cooking, and not freaking out too terribly…that’s more than OK, right?  Right.

Potential Major Complication – I learned that my (secular calendar) birthday this year basically brushes the Jewish calendar’s Tisha B’Av.  It’s the “saddest day in Jewish history.” This sucks big time.  For Jews, of course, but practically speaking, for me and my party plans.  It’s a fast day.  And it doesn’t matter that I’ve planned to have a party on July 30th – the day before my actual birthday and a Thursday (so my religious friends can attend – they wouldn’t be able to on a Friday night).  They’ll be breaking a fast now.  And most likely wouldn’t be able to come to a party even if they did want to. Part of me thinks I should be glad.  My birthday this year falls immediately after Tisha B’Av — so it’s a good thing, right?  We can rejoice and be happy and be grateful for all we have instead of mournful for all we’ve lost.  But I’m prone to be childish about this, wanting to stomp my feet, pout, and curse the heavens for this dastardly coincidence.

Then again, then again…there’s the mystique of it all.  It is said that the Messiah, the real deal Messiah, would be born on Tisha B’Av (which means the 9th day of the month of Av).  I missed it by a mere two days.  I was born on Zayin B’Av, or the 7th of Av.  Still a pretty bad day historically.  It’s the day the walls of the city of Jerusalem were breached leading to the destruction of the temple two days later.  But not the worst of the worst of Jewish mourning.  There’s a stigma around it.  People do NOT want their kids born on this day.

Birthday Party Plans

I am probably going to throw a pretty standard party: invite everyone I know to my apartment on July 30th for a rooftop barbecue from the early evening until the wee hours.  With the exception of a handful of religious friends, I think this will still work.  Due to my current finances, I’m thinking of doing this BYOB or having a donation box for whatever alcohol I do have.  To make it run more smoothly, I’m considering getting friends to take turns being bartender in a clearly designated area.  I was also thinking of recruiting someone to DJ or at the very last assist with sound, something basic, like hooking up speakers that are better than the ones on my computer and connecting an ipod with a good mix to it.  I was also thinking of having this catered.  Now, I don’t think I can afford this really.  But I’m putting my foot down – I don’t want to cook on my own birthday, but I want the food to be good.  I have to be able to enjoy this party, not be running to the door to greet folks every few minutes, not feel obligated to refill glasses, run around like a madwoman in the kitchen, etc.

Week of B-day Fun to Counter the Anticlimax

I think I’m not alone in being a bit sensitive about birthdays.  Even though I plan so hard to prepare myself for anything, I usually end up a bit disappointed.  I can’t get it out of my head that amazing things are supposed to happen.  That on a birthday the truly miraculous can and should happen – a real prince charming to whisk me away, a dream job opportunity, winning the lottery, or just a really perfect day happening without feeling even slightly let down.

Does this make me a prima donna?  I don’t know.  I just don’t.  I guess it stems from the fact that I find life to be pretty hard.  Beautiful, often, but hard.  I don’t expect the miraculous every day.  If I can get out of bed and be even slightly productive, it’s a good day.  If I can get together with friends, it’s a a super day.  If I allow myself to be normal and try to have fun, try to date, try to dance, it’s an exceptional day.  So on my birthday, on my birthday, on that random anniversary that should just be any old day, I just always kind of believed that I should get some help.  That at least on one day of the year, I could and should have a perfect day.  I should look great, do fun things, have a great party, be surrounded by kind people, beautiful food, and have it be effortless.  That’s it.  The effortlessness of it.  Because life is anything but.

So to dull the perhaps inevitable disappointment or at least the anticlimax of the countdown to midnight, I was thinking of having a “week of fun and interesting events.”  With or without friends.  It’s more than healthy to do at least one thing that makes you happy every day.  But perhaps with the week leading up to my birthday, this big birthday, I’ll do extraordinary things that make me happy.  Go to the opera.  Go to a really fine restaurant or drink a really good bottle of wine.  Take a fun class or art workshop.  Spend a full day doing nothing but reading trashy books (or Harry Potter) on the beach, eating fries and drinking beer.  Go hiking and swimming in one of Israel’s many many national parks.  Go camping.  Do a lot of yoga.  Have a facial and a really good wax job.  Stuff like that.

Boobies on Parade!

Which leads me to something I really want to make happen on or around my birthday.  A very dear friend of mine is a conceptual artist who is building an ongoing installation which incorporates dozens and dozens (or hundreds or much more) of plaster-caster breasts.  That’s right.  She lubes up women’s breasts and places papier macher/plaster of paris type stuff over them…and ends up with perfect molds which she then uses for her work.  She’s done mine.  And it was a liberating experience.  Imagine a dozen or more ladies, real ladies, your friends, topless, waiting to have their boobies plastered for posterity.  And because I’m moving into an apartment with a private rooftop terrace, perfect at night for our sweltering Tel Aviv weather, I’ve asked her if we can do a plaster-caster session as part of my birthday festivities.  And I really want to make it happen.  But because of Tisha B’Av she can’t come on my birthday, and we’d have to do it a few days before or after.  Which might work well for my “b-day week of fun”.  I would absolutely die to have as many of my female friends as possible topless, drinking sangria, laughing, taking turns being molded and sculpted.  How much fun, how empowering, how sexy, how much I miss being around a lot of people I love doing something creative and silly and effortless.  You know?

79 Days: Year to date

I was restless trying to sleep last night.  My birthday is really soon.  Under three months.  And maybe it’s just my depressive tendencies.  Maybe it’s low self-esteem.  But I really, really, for a major flash, saw this as a completely wasted year.  In the next flash of a moment, I frantically started listing things that I’ve already done this year.  It went something like this:

1. Quit job that was bad for my soul
2. Went to India, a questionable time was had, but I went
3. I went to Ireland, and it was amazing, and it gave me career ideas and made a good friend
4. I went to Italy and Croatia and Greece and Turkey with the whole family, and even though I “just went,” it was an experience
5. I did complete a real first draft of the novel
6. The first draft of the novel was completely critiqued.  Even though I’ve been petrified to do real work using this severe criticism, I got it critiqued and theory can get it finished and sent out soon…
7. I have been dating.  Kind of.  Without great effort.  But it’s kind of something.
8. Therapy has been good.
9. Blogging has been fun and seems productive, even though I don’t get paid for it.
10. Found a cool part part part time job leading wine tastings
11. Cooked a lot of scrummy family meals for my uncle and cousins
12. Got two great cats
13. Have made huge strides in being a clean, responsible adult who does laundry and makes her bed more than once in a blue moon
14. Have really made a big effort to see friends, and it’s paying off, even though I’ve backpedaled and slumped in spurts.
15. I learned I could draw, really well.
16. Professionally catered one giant birthday party
17. I wrote a small handful of culinary articles for a Jewish magazine (maybe I should reprint them here…I’m not sure, though, any takers?)

I can probably add a bit here and there.  I guess what’s missing here is the “career” category.  Nothing that I can slap a label on that says success.  But it’s been interesting.  And it’s not over.  I have made huge strides in completing many, many, many of my “things to do before 30” list.

So, in order to salvage my silly self and ego and be orderly, here are a few more concrete things I want DONE by July 31:

1. Finish a second draft of the novel
2. Send out samples and intro letters to agents and publishers
3. Find paid work I don’t hate (even if it’s very part time waitressing, I need some self-respecting income to start paying rent because…)
4. I need to move out of my current depressing digs and into a home.  I am supposedly in the works to do so and move in with my sister into an apartment my mother purchased last year, in a chi chi awesome part of town, close to the beach, designer shops, cafes, an organic grocery store, you name it.  Thing is – ties to Mom, and having to live with a sometimes emotionally-unstable sister.  Other thing is, I will be paying rent, so I will technically be a tenant.  With rights.  It’s a much bigger place with a very hip layout and a decked out roof garden with direct access from our living room, which means the the cats will be happy, and there may just be enough physical space to spread out in case my sister goes ballistic.  Then, there are the days when I want to run screaming from the hills, move out of town, or to a crappy far away neighborhood I can afford in order to truly be independent.  But I don’t think this isn’t independent.  I mean, if I pay rent, I pay rent.  And I’m not going to be underpaying, here.  It’s just a gorgeous lot of apartment.  And I don’t have to look for it.  It’s there, because it was bought by my selfish self-centered witch of a mother who intends to use it as her very own every time she’s in town (which means, where the hell do I go…tenants’ rights?).  I’m going to stop here.  No I’m not.  Because I sound like a real bitch talking about my mother this way.  I do love her, and I do a lot for her, believe me.  She doesn’t just come for a visit, you see, when I could fix up a guest bed and cook a celebratory brunch.  She comes for a month or two, takes over everything, and uses the place like it’s hers.  No asking to use things.  Inviting her friends over at all hours.  Leaves her things everywhere.  Doesn’t clean.  Treats us like children.  She’s the roommate from hell.  Read The Drama of the Gifted Child.  That’s my mom.  Narcisist. With a capital ‘N.’  She’s the reason for a majority of my neuroses and major character flaws and huge therapy bills. Period.  We don’t get along, and it’s for nothing obvious that you can put a finger on because the whole world thinks she’s a loveable eccentric.  She just makes my skin crawl.  Now I’m done.
5. Make a longer-term plan for income and creativity balance.  Because I have novel #2 in the works.  Very loose outline.  But I’m excited.  Even if nobody ever reads what I write, I’m a writer, right?  Why do I have to convince myself…

These things seem reasonable.  Yes, they do.  If I work hard.  2+ months?  Piece of cake.  You are all witnesses!  I have to move on this people.  Go ahead and ask me how the editing is going — go ahead — and don’t let me evade the questions…

Have a great day…I am, with friends in Jerusalem.  I love the productivity that time-crunches push you into!