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.
So fine, in fact, that I don’t care if everything gets done right, or if it gets done at all! For the party tonight, that is…
I’m really OK. My sister and I cooked quite a bit last night. The house isn’t clean clean, but it’s not a disaster. There’s food. And plenty of booze. Some of the wine is actually expensive and tasty stuff…
And I’m getting a facial in an hour.
ANd I’ve realized (and must continue to realize) that being in your 30’s means knowing you’re in control of your destiny. If you feel like it, you can rent a car and drive off into the sunset. Or buy a ticket to Provence. Or Tuscany. Or Goa. Or Russia in winter. Or sleep all day. Or jump off a cliff.
So, as I finish off being in my 20’s… I’ve got to say it’s been an incredible decade.
I began it in Dublin, Ireland, for a year. Spent a lot of time in London, Moscow, Bangkok, Chicago, the Negev desert, and Tel Aviv. I’ve vacationed in France and Italy and India and Ireland. I’ve eaten lobsters in Maine. I’ve hiked mountains on my own. I’ve set foot in more than 35 countries. I earned two degrees and one professional certification. I’ve worked in something like 5 different careers or more. I’ve made and lost (mostly made and kept) some incredible friends and lovers. I’ve baked dozens of cakes. I’ve fashioned hundreds of beautiful meals. I’ve written some decent prose and even a book. Directed some avant-garde plays. Made some attempts at art. Created some radio stories. Met some of the best living artists of our time. Made some money and spent basically all of it. I’ve found a way to own a great iMac, a fantastic KitchenAid, and I have always found room in the budget for Chanel Allure Sensuelle.
A good decade? Why not. Yes. Yes it has been. There’s no need to look at what you don’t yet have, and what you didn’t yet do. This is enough.
I have had the energy of a toddler (or the endurance and strength of superwoman, take your pick) this past week or so. I’ve done the near-impossible. Moved house with my bare hands on my own with the help of borrowed cars, my sister’s and a friend’s muscle power, and a ride from my uncle. We’re talking hundreds of books here. A closet that really needs to be sorted through. Professional kitchen equipment. A desktop computer. Everything but furniture. All taken up by hand to the new fourth floor apartment that I’m sharing with sis.
AND I’ve had several appointments, therapeutic and business alike.
AND I’ve bought furniture, brought it home in a taxi, walked it up the stairs, and put it together.
AND I’ve applied to some jobs (albeit without as much zest as before the move…energy does have its limits), interviewed for one, and gathered references (I dare not jinx myself, but I am really hoping for this one).
AND we’re having a party tomorrow for which we’ve been shopping for food and drinks and now have to unpack and clean the house to within an inch of its life.
AND I may have made some good professional connections in the wine industry…(!!!)
No rest for the weary, huh.
But who’s weary?
I’m now pretty damned excited about turning 30. This is great. Everything is possible. The world is my oyster, n’est-ce pas? AND since I’ve figured out just about what I’ll be doing on the day of my birthday (brunch at one of the best gourmet fish/brunch restaurants that just happens to be right smack dab on the beach, followed by a leisurely walk through Tel Aviv — it’s the city-wide art-market day — perhaps a bit of shopping, an ice coffee and pie at my favorite cafe, siesta and dinner at home, followed by cake and coffee and wine at the very best authentic French-style patisserie/restaurant in town), all I have to do now is stick with the plan. Unpack, clean, buy meat for the BBQ. AND pick up the newly framed artwork. AND deal with the handyman who’s coming tonight. AND get to my facial appointment on time tomorrow before the party (haven’t told my sister about that one)…
God’s in his heaven. All’s right with the world. Yup, yup.
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…
Just made luscious pasta. So scrummy. We eat far too much pasta, I think, but if there are enough veggies and flavor, it should be OK. The secret? Butter. Butter is always the secret. Why? Nobody wants to know it’s there. But if your food tastes extra-amazing at a restaurant…it’s because of the butter piled on as a finisher. You can count on it. It’s my secret, too.
Pasta is my sisterly tradition. I have two sisters. When we’re together, one of us very often hops into the kitchen and whips up some pasta. When one of them does it, it’s pretty plain. A can of tomato pasta sauce, maybe some extra garlic, salt, and pepper. When I do it, I usually make my own sauce. Veg, of course onion, tons of garlic, tomato, olive oil, sometimes zucchini, bell peppers, greens, ginger, mushrooms, and so much more. I like my pasta spicy. I throw in a ton of chili. Cayenne. Hot paprika. I’m fond of Vietnamese fish sauce instead of salt (don’t tell my sisters!), and sometimes, I throw in butter at the end. Oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, cilantro.
Then we sit, each with a deep Asian soup-cereal type bowl, and watch sappy cable TV. Sometimes it’s America’s Next Top Model. Sometimes it’s a a wildlife documentary like Big Cat Diary, which my youngest sister, Indiana Jones Jr, loves so damned much. And my personal favorite — British Murder Mysteries – Dalziel and Pascoe, Inspector Linley, Miss Marple, Midsommer Murders. These days if we’re lucky there are some great Gordon Ramsey shows. It’s fab that he has so many damned ventures, because he’s on in some capacity all the time…and usually fantastic entertainment. I dream of being on Hell’s Kitchen these days. I have the skills and training. Wouldn’t it be cool to be screamed down by that blond monster?
But these days, our middle sister is stateside. We miss her. Jones Jr and I are boiling and sweating in our skins, watching Finding Neverland, after a slew of boring modeling, wedding, and other ridiculous reality TV shows didn’t make the grade.
Pasta. Spaghetti. Al dente. Cooking in water as salty as the sea. Tonight served with zucchini. And butter. Always finished with butter. It’s best that way. Warmed with memories.
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!
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.
Funny how the symbol for infinity is an eight turned on its side. Or maybe I should ask why an eight is an infinity symbol standing on end. In any case, it’s almost a week until my 30th, and it might as well be an eternity away for how much a have to accomplish by that date…
Being an avid book lover and having to move apartments to a fourth floor walkup without any cash or much help is a nightmare. Having to do this in the middle of summer in Tel Aviv with a twenty year-old borrowed car (without AC) on its very last leg made this hell on earth.
But I survived. Every muscle shaking. So wet from sweat, it was like I’d jumped in the sea with all my clothes on.
And here I sit. In the gorgeous new place. No idea how I will be paying for it. Not at all unpacked. And with a couple more loads of stuff to bring over from my old place.
I did have a short interview today. For what could be the answer to my prayers. A work from home job that could pay exceptionally well to basically be a long-distance secretary. But the chances are low, and the interview process long. Which means the resumes still keep going out.
And I’m going to turn in. I can actually get about 8 hours sleep tonight…a far cry from the 3-4 hours I’ve been getting because of the move. Tomorrow is another wine tasting. My feet hurt. And a word to the wise:
I took a good look at myself naked today in a large wall-sized full length mirror, standing perhaps ten or more feet back. And you know what? I liked what I saw. Sure there were flaws. Stretch marks. Thunder thighs. But overall, it was refreshing. Even invigorating. It was exciting to see myself from so far away, and so completely. Usually when we look, if we even dare to look, it’s rather close up…I mean, who owns such a large full length in perhaps their largest room, so they can have the most far-off perspective? And here I was. Nowhere near perfect. But really beautiful. Someone, who if I didn’t know it was me, that I would consider quite attractive.
Being so close to the big 3-0, it was surprising how little if anything this had to do with age. I’m finally OK with my body. Sure, I know I can and should improve it. But I don’t give a flying F- about criticizing my body so much so that I hate myself. Looking at this body, almost as if it were someone else’s, I thought, “wouldn’t it be wonderful to give this body the gift of some yoga once in a while…” I giggle just thinking about it. It’s such a ticklish fanciful thing to be able to walk around in the nude and be really really OK with that. More than OK. To enjoy it. To actually start to understand why someone might even want to go to a nudist retreat. It’s a real pleasure to like living in your body. Who knows, it might even lead to positive sexual experiences. Which is another huge can of worms in and of itself. And I’m not sure I want to go there now.
I’ll end by saying this – I was just kissed. Kissed by a man I can imagine making love to but know I probably shouldn’t. Kissed by a man I am somewhat attracted to but am also extremely perplexed by. Kissed by a man who may be able to turn me off as much as he turns me on. Weird, I know. It was a perplexing “is this a date or not” kind of evening. This man propositioned me without saying a word. Thought he was taking me home, thanked him, and he said, “oh, I was taking you to my home…” But a kiss is worth more than a thousand words. I was looking forward to it, despite not knowing whether to be shocked or tittilated by his more than somewhat forward (or rude) behavior. And this kiss…was wet!!!! Sloppy, wet, and set off absolutely no sparks. Not even a mild fizzle. So wet, it’s been over a half hour and I can still smell that “other person’s saliva” smell on my face! I got my answer, wouldn’t you say?
Today was a good day. Productive enough, but not stellar. Scheduled some things, raised my sister’s spirits, edited a bit, and saw the new Harry Potter. But beyond these normal things, it was still really really good. Why? A great conversation. A conversation about important things, trivial trifles, the past, the future, culture, current events, family, art, life…in short, a long long chummy chat about everything and nothing at all. And at the end, I got a tarot reading!
A friend long ago remarked to me that he could measure the quality of his day by the quality of the conversations had in it. Following this line, life could be judged by the content of our communication more than by, say, achievements. And it makes sense, doesn’t it? Our lives are a collection of moments and what we choose to fill them with. Who we choose to share rooms with. It’s incredible to think about the power a conversation has. In basic terms, it’s just communication of facts, opinions, emotions, and responding in kind. Most conversations are a matter of mundane necessity. So why, when everything goes right, can they be so damned fulfilling? So…essential, so thrilling, so nurturing it feels almost like it’s feeding some deep part of you that didn’t know it was hungry? Well, it seems to me that it’s exactly the conversations we don’t need to have that we really do need to have. An excellent conversation is our unique elegant refined human ability to achieve perhaps the highest level of intimacy. Albeit different than the physical, a conversation has the potential to connect people and create bonds between people, if only momentarily, in stronger ways.
I used to consider myself a “gourmet conversationalist” and even used that phrase (yes, haughtily so) in some online dating ads. And in the last couple years, I haven’t had too many. Until now. An old friend who recently appeared in my life has proven on every occasion an absolute elixir of delightfully deliciously complex ideas and thoughts. And a new friend has provided some simply delightful afternoons full of musings on contemporary dance, art, Israel. With both of these people, I have had several hours-long talks that seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, leaving me feeling on cloud 9. And I think the feeling was mutual. It leaves me wondering what I was doing all this time…how did I exist without conversations like these before? This must be what having a really strong community feels like.
Is it by chance that we find these mutually-fulfilling gourmet conversationalists? Is this real friendship? If you don’t have these essential talks with the friends you have, does it mean they’re not the very best of friends? Or only that you’ve been so busy, depressed, distracted by the sadness and chaos that often consumes us in life? Does every friend have to be able to have these soul rocking sessions? I don’t think so. But it would be preferable. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have one juicy idea-packed gab-session every day? Wouldn’t we all be the happier and probably the healthier for it? Yes. Yes, indeed, indeed, and of course.
When I have one of these excited lingering talks, about god knows what — wine, art, makeup, aging, Chekhov, etiquette, Arabic, emotions, sex, books, movies, madness, and more — I know, I know, I know in my heart of hearts that life is good, that life is special, and in whatever sense, be it religious, spiritual, scientific, agnostic, or merely optimistically atheistic, an undeniable blessing. A great conversation is our humanity in action.
May you all communicate deliciously as often as you can!
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…
I watched the entire 7th season of the West Wing today. That’s it. Did some laundry (miracles do happen). Bought some sushi to take home to my sister.
All this Saturday amazingness when I should be editing, applying for work, becoming entrepreneurial, packing for my move next week, seeing friends, planning my birthday party, and a dozen other more important meaningful things.
It begs the question of life’s meaning again. Not meaning. Maybe purpose is a better word. If a person gets up and works a mundane job, but goes home, enjoys their dinner, loves their sit-coms, occasionally goes on vacation, and lives their life without much of any regret, that must be perfectly OK. Most people are like this, I think. Why am I different? Because I was raised to think I could do something significant to change the world and leave my mark on it? Why am I miserable? Because I don’t have the balls or the skills or the self esteem or the training (maybe) to fulfill my potential or dreams or whatever?
Whatever. But I have got to come to terms that I make my own bed, and I do indeed sleep in it. If I don’t like where I am, I’m the only one to blame. And if my book is moving slowly, it’s me that’s the slow mover. And if I spend a Saturday watching the West Wing, that’s what I did. And it’s OK. It’s OK because I allowed it, and I told myself that I would not feel badly about it. Usually, I would (or I should) feel horrible about zoning out and twiddling my thumbs and not forwarding my goals.
A day of fine wine, exceptionally hot heat, a stubborn sick cat, and of course, exhaustion.
Wine in the summer?
The tasting I led to today was at a very nice wine shop in a very posh neighborhood right next to where my cousins live. Unfortunately, the store was pretty small, and they asked me to set up shop, (wine buckets, ice, crystal glasses, wine menus, the works) outside. I wasn’t happy, but there didn’t seem to be another option. I could have left early. I could have called my manager. I could have been a bitch. But I was good. I may have heat stroke, but I’m good. And again, wrong shoe choice! I never want to stand up again!
My cat who I thought was on the mend is most decidedly not. Folks, if your vet asks you for a stool sample, provide him with one, tout de suite! The bad bowels stopped. So I thought he was fine. Then my sister and I noticed he wasn’t quite himself, took to sleeping in the bathtub, not eating as much. Then, I took in the sample. Turns out, he might have had a fever all week. Two kinds of bacteria or parasites or something icky like that! I feel like a bad pet owner. And the antibiotic pills are a nightmare. He hates them more than you can hate anything, I think. We’re talking scratches all over the arms all week long. We deserve it though.
Blog Monetizing
So, I’ve been giving some thought to creating a new blog, a good blog, a professional blog, all for the new year, my new age, my new decade…and monetize it. My views regarding sales have always been rather negative. I don’t want to sell things to people who have no interest in them. No way, no how. Online though, everything is so passive. Many sites have ads, and we never notice them. I mean, you buy a newspaper, and there are ads there. Doesn’t mean you don’t read the news, enjoy the funnies, and dive into the crossword. Sometimes ads are helpful. And if I can choose the ads. If I believe in the product. Then, why not?
My Strengths
It’s really hard to make money in Israel. Ha! It’s hard to make money anywhere these days. And I am trying, as always, to get a good sense of my strengths, realistically speaking. Sure, I was a good pianist, sang wonderfully in choir, and I can write a great press release. But what do I realistically devote time to? Writing about myself, my views, things that interest me. And that kind of journalism/novel writing doesn’t exist on a real “bankable” plane. My novel is largely autobiographical. The journalism I have done was all human interest. The few essays, short stories, etc, that I have completed, and completed well, were spin offs of what I knew.
You write who you are
Is it wrong? No. I think it makes sense. All writers write best when they write what they know. And the person we know best is ourselves. It explains common themes and characters in the works of the same author. It explains a journalistic subdivision (a finance writer doesn’t stop and occasionally write theatre reviews). We write who we are.
And I love to blog.
So, if you have any advice out there, please bring it on. I’ve found a ton of articles on how to monetize and tips and blogs on blogging, etc. But a helping hand to weed out the crud would be wonderful.
Great weekend folks! Wish me luck with editing the book…or rather…battling the demons…as I now understand this task to be.
My birthday is fast approaching, and I only now, just now, like 5 minutes ago sent out an invitation online to my party. What am I thinking? I wanted paper invitations, a carefully planned event, something elegant, something I could really enjoy because it was so well planned, it had to go right. Right? Well, a bit over two weeks should still be enough to have a nice party. But still.
I still don’t know whether to care or not to care. It’s silly. It’s a stupid non-issue here. Of course I care…and of course, I don’t. Duh…
Like CARING so much it hurts…
So…there are moments during my day when it’s like, “holy shit, I’m going to be thirty…at my age my mother was 8 months pregnant with me…I have no life, no love life, no career, no routine, no schedule, I’m scared, I’m lost…shit, shit, shit…I’m going to be this 30 year old loser and nobody will come to my party!”
Like NOT CARING at all…(or much)
Hey, it’s another day on the calendar. You will be the same exact person. Your goals are the same. If anything, let it motivate you. Try harder. If you’re feeling self-conscious, you don’t have to tell anyone your age. Thank God for your common sense with SPF face creams daily from age 19 and thank God for Israelis (and much of the rest of the world) NOT being smart and allowing themselves to sizzle…so the glorious result is that many Israelis peg you at 25. It’s awesome. Sex and the City was all about women in their 30s and up, and they all got laid a lot. Right? They were still sexy cover girl-y awesome things with exciting careers and lives. There is hope. This could be the best thing that ever happened to you. People will finally take you seriously just because of your age. Hell, maybe you’ll ever start to take yourself seriously! Right? Right.
So…what?
According to Gretchen Rubin and her happiness project, one of the keys to happiness is…not to care. An interesting article and a technique I have been aware of for some time. I was the one who received her own copy of “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all small stuff” when I was about 16 years old.
But it’s much easier said than done. I can easily tell myself, “don’t care, it’s just a birthday.” And seriously, folks, it’s not like I’m having a coronary here. I’m sure it will all be fine. I’ll wake up the day after my birthday, and I will have survived. I know that. Oh shit, maybe I shouldn’t jinx myself here…you never know with the state the world is in…I should probably wake up, hopefully wake up, touch wood. But really not caring…that takes some time and determination and perhaps a really good ability to ignore stuff, brush stuff off, etc. And I’ve never been one of those people. I hoped this blog would help. And it has. I’ve never had such a well-documented year. It’s pretty awesome. Still…
Letting the wish list be the motivator
Yup. There it is. I think a lot of people get a bit nervous or emotional at big birthdays. It’s the insecurity coming through. I look at other friends of mine and think, “it must have been so much easier for them…” thinking…this one is married and that one has kids and this one has a great career and that one is well placed financially…and so on and so on. But everyone has the chinks in their armor. Everyone. Maybe there’s someone out there wishing they’d gone to India like me. Or quit a job they hated, like I did.
And the things that I lack that bother me most? What are they?
Career versus loving what I do complicated by making money
A home of my own
A solid group of friends
A beautiful relationship
I know these things. I really do. And if I’m aware of them, I can work on them and make some headway into eliminating the issues. This blog helped me do just that. The work isn’t over.
What can you do?
Ask me how I’m doing on my novel (the badgering helps). Keep your eyes open for interesting journalism/writing/editing/wine/catering jobs. And come to my party (if you know me apart from this anonymous blog). Please come to my party…I promise I will try to make it fun!
Today I devote myself to my novel which takes place in Paris. I’ve had some breakthroughs this week, and I know how to tie together the structure, finally! I just need to do it.
So, folks, French or not, Francophile or not, remember this great day. Le quatorze juillet commemorates not only the uprising of the modern French nation, but is the symbol of the cusp of many trends in history, in politics and economics. Nothing was the same after the French Revolution. For all of us. And that is indeed something to celebrate.
Enjoy this amazing video fromCasablanca! I always want to cry when I hear the Marseillaise, but I wept openly in this Tel Aviv cafe when I watched this gem. I marvel that it was a film made in 1942, a war film meant to bolster the nation, when the world had no idea what the outcome of the war would be. No idea if France would be free again. If anyone would be safe again.
Yes, it’s my third post in a 24-hour period. Wow. Might help to know about the three cups of coffee I’ve consumed today.
So…here’s the scoop:
Was on the phone with a charming new acquaintance who asked to put me on hold…and it turns out the other caller…was a charged felon making a rare prison call. Helps to know my friend is a criminal defense attorney. But weird to know that the caller on the same line as you is calling from jail. And talking to the same person you are talking to.
My “Ideal Human Diet” article has been getting lots of clicks. I followed some of the ping backs and discovered something interesting. And bizarre. There is a group of pro- raw milk folks who are set on trashing Louis Pasteur. Not sure how I feel about that. I always marveled at the fact that he cured rabies. They make him out to be an opportunist and a bit of a thief of other people’s ideas…always following the money, making lots of useless vaccines and the like. And that Pasteurization doesn’t kill all bacteria while it does harm the milk. Now, I’m all for raw milk. But it’s caveat emptor here. I think it’s healthier. And if you can get it right from the source, and the conditions are very safe and sanitary. Fantastic. But getting milk to the masses is a dangerous business. And we’re not in a world where people have their own pet cow in the back yard. Additionally, I’ve just been introduced to a new theory: Pleomorphic Microorganisms, where the website claims, “A virus can become a bacterium which can mutate into a yeast or fungus.” Apparently pharmaceutical companies don’t want us to know about this phenomenon because they would stop making the big bucks on tons of illness-specific meds. Read a bit more about this term here and here.
Just found out that Chastity Bono (the only daughter of Cher and Sonny Bono) is now Chaz Bono (the only son of Cher and Sonny Bono). Going through a gender transformation. Yes. I was in shock. But I have no right to be. I don’t know her. This is a difficult transition for anyone, and I daresay, this is the first celebrity gender change I have ever heard of. I guess it hit home more because she was an important figure in my life when I was a teenager. I identified as a lesbian back then. Now, it’s somewhat more complicated, but I’ve lived a much more hetero lifestyle for about ten years (perhaps I’ll delve in more in a coming post). But this is beside the point. She was a media darling, coming out of the closet the way she did. I looked up to her. And I support what s/he is doing now. It’s just a shock. And I don’t entirely know why. In theory I understand transgender people, their feeling trapped in their bodies, their wanting to change to their physical gender. I support them. I suppose it goes to show how much gender figures in the identity of a person. I’ve only known one or two people personally (but not closely) to have undergone this experience, and I wasn’t in touch afterward. I can’t help but feel like the person they were before no longer exists. It’s easy to say that s/he is the same person as ever, truer now than ever before. But I still have trouble referring to my former friend as “he” instead of “she” because when we were friends he was a she. I know that in order to reconcile this I need to become more informed, meet more people in the transgender community, etc. Part of me wonders about the role of all the technology that makes this possible. Fifty years ago or even more recently, sure, you could have said, “I’m a man, I’m a man, I’m a man, I just happened to be born in this female body!” More likely, because the technology wasn’t available, this sentiment might not even been expressed, or a person might not know how to express it. How would this person have chosen to live their life before hormones and surgery? Probably just as a lesbian. Period. Maybe dressing in a masculine way. Was Chastity Bono never a lesbian at all, rather a heterosexual man trapped in a woman’s body? Will cutting off breasts, adding a penis, growing a beard make life different? Well, of course. I don’t know where I’m going with this. But there are so many prominent lesbians I wonder about, you know. If given the chance, would someone likeGertrude Stein, for instance, choose to change her gender? Or do the times, the technological possibilities, societal norms (as well as subcultures) dictate everything? Could Stein have been nothing but a lesbian back then, when in 2009 she might have been undergoing surgery? I don’t know. Part of me feels like even the thought of the possibility of this is saddening. Like, the “lesbian” in me is proud because she was a lesbian. Bono’s life, body, decision, everything, is her/his own. But what s/he meant to me back then…it changes something. Like she was never a lesbian at all. Even though I’m just talking a bunch of BS right now. And I have no right to pass judgement here. Oh the perils of celebrity. I wish Chaz immense luck on his journey.
I’m so happy right at this very moment! Sitting at one of my favorite cafes after a grueling walk in the heat and bad shoes (once again) to get here, Mr. Jones by Counting Crows came on the air. I love this song. I just adore this song. I feel happy and good and connect and I’m reminded of high school when this came out and sticking up for myself, and I just want to smile and cry and I never want this song to end.
I’m gonna be a big star…
And with that. It’s over.
But if this lets me embed…we can all enjoy it a little while longer.
Cross a good therapy session, a two-week bout of “white collar” homelessness, and a sappy made-for-tv movie, and what do you get? The twelve year-old in me, the girl who dreamt big and believed it all possible, emerges. And why not? The bigger question here is, where has she been? And why doesn’t she stick around for very long?
Answer one: I’ve been living in jaded-ville off and on for ten years.
Answer two: I’ve been trying to stay in the neutral category, just edging out of negative, that the unthinkable (the positive) was just that.
What the hell am I talking about? See, it’s as if I’ve created a triptych out of my perception of the world:
A) world as it should be
B) world as it is
C) world as it could be
What’s the subtle difference here?
Option A: the world as it should be
There is a template to this world, and we’ve got it all wrong. We get sadness, pessimism, cynicism, and hopelessness here. We have failed in some moral, ethical way. When we think of the world as a series of mishaps, of what was meant to be, and didn’t happen, it’s a major bummer. We’ve polluted the air, the water, killed off half the animals and plant species, people are still dying of hunger, horrible diseases are ravaging the world, and on, and on. The world should not have been this way! How can we ever get out of it?! How can we get back on track to how the world should be? It should have been cleaner, we should have been smarter, nicer, more generous…bla, bla, bla. “Should be” in the very best possible sense focuses only on fixing problems, keeping in mind some illusory “perfect world of should be” as a goal. It’s a constant reminder of a failure. And something we owe it to ourselves, or more so, owe it to the world, to work toward. It’s a struggle here.
Option B: the world as it is
There is no blueprint for how we as a species or the earth as a planet are meant to evolve. On my best days, these days, this is where I live. No shoulda coulda woulda. No right and wrong. No fault. No blame. No emotional entanglement. Sure, lots of things have been killed off. Sure, we’re choking ourselves to a slow hot death. So what. The universe will not weep for us. We conquered the planet as a species, so if we did what it what we have done, consequences will ensue. So what. Is it wrong? Is it fair? What’s fair? We were stupid, we killed off elements fundamental to our own survival…so we deserve to die. Right? Right. No, not “deserve.” There is no blame here. We were stupid. We will die. Or maybe we won’t. If we’re smart and we fix stuff and save our skins. When I’m in this mode of being, which I often am these days, I marvel at human history. Industrialization, politics and power, economics and wealth distribution, rights and responsibilities. All, all, all superficial constructs. Why does anyone have a right to live? It’s laughable! One is born if one is born, without consent or permission. If a baby died in childbirth, it died in childbirth. If one person is born to a rich family, and one to a poor family, so what? Are they equal? Of course not. What on earth do rights have to do with it? This is a world of that which is, simply is. It’s a world of power, of laissez faire, of sit back and watch what happens. It’s all so amusing to watch people up in arms over issues when nothing actually matters!
Option C: The world as it could be
We’re making up the blueprint as we go along, always adapting, learning, changing. I wish I could live here. It takes effort these days. Perhaps it just makes me sad to think of the girl I once was, so excited about the future, so excited to be alive and have the chance to participate in something so beautiful and important. The world as it could be, the world as it could be. It’s an optimist’s haven. It’s the world of sci-fi, of Star Trek, of admitting, “sure, it’s really bad…but there’s a bright side, and we’re working hard to get there.” The world as it could be throws out the idea that there was a definite way the world should be working. It takes the best of the honesty from Option B (OK, this is where we are), admits to a little bit of option A (OMG! it’s bad, it’s really bad, and we did it), but gets on with it, takes a deep breath, thinks big and way outside the box, and then makes a realistic plan of attack. This is the world of Disney, Ford, NASA, the biosphere, Apollo missions, the pyramids of Egypt, hovering bullet trains, Asimov, Gregor Mendel, the Pantheon, Da Vinci and Galileo and Matisse and Picasso and Kandinsky and Rothko. It’s the best. It’s hope meeting action. It’s admitting we can’t have a solid picture of where we “should be headed,” but it doesn’t mean that we, “see the world for what it is and stand still.” It’s keeping your chin up. And working hard. With a goal in mind.
My goals have gotten small lately. I’m so used to being disappointed with myself, I don’t expect to succeed. And I forget that I used to be so successful, it was embarrassing. Like a success junkie. Maybe that’s what makes this adult reality so much the more difficult. My self esteem is in the gutter quite often. But no excuses. Not anymore.
I care about so many things. So many. Sure, it’s a little late to become a NASA scientist or a Greenpeace sailor or a Cousteau researcher. But I’m only 29 years, 11 months, and 12 days old. That’s kind of young enough to take on a project. Or take adopt a new purpose to your life. Enough with getting by. I need to reach goals. Big ones. Because it is possible. Helping Israel develop its recycling system (which is embarrassingly behind the rest of the world) is attainable. Getting a complete amount of organic produce here could be done. Ending childhood poverty in a country as small as this, can be done. It can be. Writing about issues that I find important, and get paid to do it, is possible. It is.
I just need to figure out how to stay here. Because I still need a day job for the moment. I still struggle with depression, big time. Perhaps Lifetime TV and the Hallmark Channel just became my new best friends…
A topic that really, really interests me. It should interest everyone, really. What we eat is who we are. The food and drink we imbibe becomes the fabric of our cells. And given the spiral of ill-health around the world, the raging debate (at least in some circles you’ll find me visiting) around vegan-ism being the true natural diet for humans, my oft-hesitant carnivorous tendencies following nearly a decade of vegetarianism, and of course, the fact that I adore cooking, food history, etc, etc, it was serendipitous that I came across this article today.
The Healthiest Foods On Earth!
According to this article by Jonny Bowden, published in Forbes, it’s not necessarily what you eat, but how processed what you eat actually is. There’s a lot of debate as to what the “original” Paleolithic human diet was. Quite varied, probably. Depending on where we originated (rather where our ancestors migrated to and settled into many, many, many thousands of years ago), our predecessors may have thrived upon a high fat, high protein diet (hunting seals and the like in Greenland), or low protein, high carbs (in southern Africa), milk and fatty-cream (Switzerland…and from a documentary I recently saw…Mongolian nomads today thriving mainly on horse milk and yogurt), or even blood. Crazy, right!?
Wrong. The issue I have with vegans is this specifically. Human beings were never vegetarians. Maybe we were when we were apes. But there’s a reason we’re not still apes. Our ancestors were resourceful and depending on where they wound up, may have gotten up to 65% or more of their intake from animals. You know, it’s probably the reverse…we ended up where we did because we learned to hunt and gather in this way. We learned to survive. We are learners and adapters. We are human.
Anyway, back to the article. Which made a lot of sense to me. It’s not what you eat, entirely, but how processed it is. The more natural the food, the more whole, the better it is for you. Even meat. Even meat. Sure, the best animal for you to be munching on would be grass fed in an open prairie-type environment that was never ever injected with any hormones or antibiotics. And then there’s milk and eggs. Perfect nutrition. So really, if we stop eating food with preservatives, if we stop eating fast food, fried food, food that doesn’t in a million years resemble food, we’ll be OK. It makes sense to eat organic. To cook simple foods at home. To eat lots of fresh fruits and veg. Nuts, berries, eggs, broccoli and its family, wild fish, raw milk, beans, grass-fed beef. Sounds good right? Better than a big mac? In a heartbeat.
My Message to Vegans
Keep at it. Love what you eat. Fight the man. It’s a good fight. But lay off me. Your logic usually sucks. I agree that most animals we eat are practically (or actually) tortured. That hormones and antibiotics are terrible things to be injecting in them and for us to be absorbing in turn. These policies are huge, most people don’t know about them, and something needs to be done. But eating animals the right way, drinking milk the right way, eating eggs the right way…I can’t see why that isn’t OK. Perhaps it disgusts you to be thinking that you’re taking part in murder or that it’s revolting to be eating an animal. OK. Good for you.
But chew on this – we (yes, including you, fellow vegans) would not be here, living this life, having created this society in this world (whether you like it or not), would it not have been for our ancestors learning how to hunt and kill and eat and eventually cook other animals. We would not have progressed. We would not have our intelligence. We would not have migrated across the entirety of this globe. Because I learned one really interesting (and almost bizarre) fact today, after having done some fancy (ordinary) internet research: the overall health and life expectancy of humans dramatically declined with the advent of agriculture. That’s right. Early farmers, the ones who enabled us to stop moving and develop cities and writing and technology, were shorter, sicklier, had far more infant mortality, died earlier, and were plagued with a myriad number of diseases.
Seems like we should all be pulling together for all of us to go back to a real Paleolithic diet, a la Fred Flintstone.
As for me, I’ll be looking for organic meat and eggs and milk in Israel. Anyone any ideas? Especially in the meat department?
Coming off of my meds (most recently Cymbalta) and being completely clean of any antidepressants or mood stabilizers or panic meds for the first time in a year was easy. I was on such a low dosage (25 mg every other day), that even the side effects and the “coming down” was almost unnoticeable. The first symptoms came a few days after, when I felt I didn’t have control over my emotional reactions. Then again, this was in regard to my mother who is the source of much of this and who bothers me and will probably always bother me immensely even while practically sedated.
And then there was today.
A decent day. Hot as hell. Hot as balls. So hot I couldn’t mop the sweat off me fast enough and there would already be another layer. I went to the cinema. Saw Bruno. Was entertained enough, but more glad of the AC and the darkness and the company, anonymous though it may be, for a while.
My little cousin is going to be drafted in two weeks, and 18 year-old’s rite of passage here in Israel. It’s traditional here to have a congratulatory party, a kind of graduation party crossed with a goodbye party. Family and friends. Salads and quiches and hummus. A very delectable semifreddo my aunt made. A cheap bottle of wine that wasn’t finished despite eight people drinking. A few speeches, actually. Exactly what I expected.
And it could have been the sweet sentimental proud words coming from grandmothers and parents. It could have been the company that almost never comes together in such form anymore (my aunt and uncle have separated, so we’re rarely in the old house, and we almost never see the other side of the family). It could have been that both those things triggered something very raw and sensitive for me. The fact that I don’t come from a speech-giving family. That it’s been a long time since I’ve felt accomplished or appreciated or loved openly. That my parents weren’t there, missing amongst the “adults.” That if we were back home in the US, we don’t have such a tight-knit family for such occasions. And I could go on and on.
But I don’t think it was as conscious as all that. A sudden melancholy just blanketed me. Right in the middle of a teary-eyed speech. It’s familiar to me. Quite familiar. But I haven’t felt it in months, and I don’t have a chemical weapon to fall back upon. Of course, this is by choice, but still. It’s like sadness but emptier. And it’s that empty void that is almost comforting. Because things become very sharply focused. Sad that I’m not a part of things, but understanding why. Understanding that it’s actually much easier than I think. This thing called life. But that I’ll perhaps never make it. Focused detachment. A sea of nothingness. And I was surrounded by people, my little cousin being praised and embraced, glasses clinking. I wanted to go away. Maybe read a book. Be alone in another room. It felt silly to be there. It had little meaning or interest anymore.
The one important thing. It did occur to me that this sudden melancholy happened all of a sudden because I wasn’t on any medication anymore. It made it slightly humorous, actually. I liked the “meta-ness” of it. Because all of a sudden I was aware of this fact, that because I wasn’t drugged, this state of being that used to be so normal had just set in again, I felt like I actually might have a modicum of control. And that’s a damned fine thing to believe, I’m telling you. Because I do thrive on melancholy. But it also destroys me. And I cannot afford to “allow myself” to fall into a pit. I have to be strong like I know I can be.
Video of Bach’s Sonata for Piano and Violin in B flat major. I saw an acquaintance perform this last night in Tel Aviv (not this video, but the music, you get the point):
The concert started late, had far too long an intermission (wasn’t sure it even needed one), and was only so-so. I mean, I’m very glad I went. It was charming, and I enjoyed the music. The performers were lovely and enthusiastic. It did get me thinking about the “ease of performance,” though. It was semi-professional (basically, adults who didn’t pursue professionally but probably studied until college, and then decided they still wanted to be active and perform here and there). Although it was a treat to hear live Bach and Mozart and Pergolesi and Handel and such, it wasn’t a real pleasure.
What’s a real pleasure?
I’m reminded of a graduate course I audited at the UofC many years ago vaguely about “poetry in the court of the Renaissance.” Something about the real skill and performance of an expert artist (or huntsman or poet or dancer, etc). Although the task this artist performs is obviously (or necessarily) quite difficult, it is the fact that he performs it with ease, with pleasure, almost with mirth, that makes a good performance. If it looks like the artist is having a difficult time, despite a positive outcome, it is painful for the audience to have to experience this.
Do not confuse this with demonstrative emotions. If an actor doesn’t cry (or scream or somehow react) at an appropriate moment in a tragedy, it doesn’t work, for instance. Or if a musician is so moved and swept up in the performance you can see it in her face and movements. What I’m talking about is this: when a magician slips up and a trick almost fails, or when a skilled musician makes a slight mistake and acknowledges it, even slightly. It takes us away from our reverie, from our suspension of disbelief. We are suddenly concerned for the artist. For his success, for his safety, for his honor and self-respect. It is then that a performance is lost.
The difference between amateur and professional is hardly a question of the monetary exchange for services rendered. It is one of our expectations being fulfilled, as an audience. Being taken away from where we are. Being able to enjoy, laugh, cry, clap, without any sort of self-checking, self-awareness.
It kind of explains why Susan Boyle, our Scottish starlet of 15-minute fame-dom, was so moving to us. We expected a “middle school” performance at best. Something we needed to tolerate, not expect to enjoy, and then perhaps pity when it went all sour. As we all expected. But no. Susan sang with ease. After she opened her mouth, we weren’t concerned about potential embarrassment for her. We were instantly swept away. It made the “sweeping away” even more moving, full, and grand because we were expecting to have to be embarrassed for and have to pity her.
It’s also why last night was a bit of a mixed bag. The music was good enough, sure. I was glad to be out. Glad to be supporting a friend. Happy at the variety of the concert, the quality of the concert hall, the grand piano, etc. But seeing the faces, the cracks, the effort. Well, it wasn’t a night out at the CSO or the RSC or the ROH. Did it need to be? No. Ach. But the effort, the effort.
That’s it, the effort. The effort ruins it as a major contender for enjoyment. It’s all about ease. It’s about jumping through flames and coming out unscathed ALL WHILE being able to do it without flinching, without running out of breath, without breaking a sweat, all with a shiny toothy-white smile, broad as daylight!
Ah, such thoughts. I miss Renaissance poetry classes and the philosophy behind experiencing such visceral things as pleasure. Art. Such delectable food for thought!
gump·tion (gmpshn)
n. Informal
1. Boldness of enterprise; initiative or aggressiveness.
2. Guts; spunk.
3. Common sense.
I have a job interview of sorts today. It came about casually. Met “the boss” at a BNI (business networking) meeting last week, and he kind of loved me, wrote notes to me during the meeting, told me he could probably help me out, that sort of thing. It’s an insurance company for travelers, both in Israel and abroad, mainly specializing in health care. And it’s a big company. A good one. I’ve bought from them before. Last week, in fact. Renters’ Insurance. So…why do I feel nervous? I tried to confirm the interview by emailing him politely. Never responded. Yes, it’s Israel. I saw him write the appointment in his diary when I was with him, so, like, I should just show up, right? And who knows if there is an actual job for me…it could be an informational thing…or a nicety. He made it seem like he doesn’t like some person who is working for him now is some position, and wouldn’t I like to take her place….whatever.
I’m going to shower. I’m going to dress well. I’m going to get there early. I’m going to eat something for breakfast.
And then it will happen.
And afterward, I go for Chinese medicine and acupuncture! Hoorah! I love those days. I only wish my income was more stable because every time I do something like this…acupuncture, see my therapist, it’s hard for me to really enjoy it because I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to afford it, or whether or not I’m already going into debt over it. These are currenly quite necessary expenses for me…so maybe I’ll just really go for that job today. Who knows? It could be the best thing to ever happen to me.
Until I get the book published, that is. Time to grow some balls, darlin’!
Enjoy this video that never ever fails to make me smile (it may not let me embed, but go to the link!)…Good day to you all!
Yes! I had a good day. It was the day and it was done! I made lots of phone calls and ran errands and went all over town and applied for jobs and even, yes, even worked on editing my manuscript! Glory Hallelujah!
And guess what. Tomorrow will be the day again. All over again. But better. Hooray!
But now onto some hilarious news and stuff I’ve dug up from the web.
The security of the new head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, has been compromised. How? His wife posted all sorts of family photos, vacation photos, and pics of their friends, revealed the location of their home, their kids’ whereabouts, etc, etc, etc…on Facebook! With no privacy settings in place! Hardy, har, har. Way embarrassing. Read on…
My male cat, the one who somehow “fell out” of a 4th floor window, got checked out at the vet’s today. He seems normal, maybe a little bit more fussy than usual except…he’s got anal leakage. Yeah. Nasty. You don’t need the long story…he’s gonna be fine, for sure. But I learned today what his real weight is. And it’s scary. I thought, sure, he’s over 5 kilos, maybe close to 6… My big fat cat weights 7.6 kilos. On an empty stomach in the morning. That’s 16.72 lbs!!! As soon as he’s healthy, he’s going on a strict vet-prescribed diet. Period. No diabetic cats will be created under my roof, no sirree bob!
I’m always interested in the bizarre ways people find my odd anonymous personal blog. One of the big search triggers is “Pompeii,” seeing as I wrote a decent post with lots of raunchy photos from my visit there. Often people search for sex in Pompeii or Pompeii brothels. Well, today, I found something so hilarious, it’s almost touching. Real graffiti from Pompeii. Not kidding. People never change. Seriously. A couple thousand years, and it’s all the same. A few choice samples:
Restitutus says: “Restituta, take off your tunic, please, and show us your hairy privates”
Amplicatus, I know that Icarus is buggering you. Salvius wrote this
The one who buggers a fire burns his penis
Lesbianus, you defecate and you write, ‘Hello, everyone!’
Floronius, privileged soldier of the 7th legion, was here. The women did not know of his presence. Only six women came to know, too few for such a stallion.
Theophilus, don’t perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog
Defecator, may everything turn out okay so that you can leave this place
I have buggered men
It took 640 paces to walk back and forth between here and there ten times
I don’t want to sell my husband, not for all the gold in the world
So…do go read all of them, will you? I’m not pulling your leg. They’re all real. Archaeologically documented and everything. Dirty macho bragging graffiti as science, art, and a piece of history. Fits, doesn’t it? The best place an archaeologist can find info on a long-gone society is in its trash heap.
Today’s the day I am being productive. Not “will be” and not “hope to be.” I saw my therapist yesterday, and we discussed daily goals, being accountable, etc. I have tasks for the week. And I will achieve them.
However, I did procrastinate…doing something fabulous for my parents… See, it’s their anniversary today. 31 years. Believe me, it’s been a rollercoaster. I’ve been around for almost 30 of these 31 years. I should know. You know how you look at some people’s relationship and think, “why don’t they just split up…they’d be happier…” Well, that’s kind of what I have been thinking about my parents, for say, 25 years. I guess they’re kind of addicted to their own drama.
It took me 2-3 hours to build. I’m still not quite sure why I did it. But the idea took hold (was doing some research on giving them a fun e-card…and nothing struck me as any good…and so I wanted to make my own e-card…and this is what came out).
For the rest of the week, I’ll be writing daily at a cafe for a couple hours. And I’ll keep doing the networking, the job stuff, and calling friends.
Piece of cake, right? Let’s hope so. No, I know so. Piece of cake.
Sarah Palin resigned as governor giving no reasons why.
Michael Jackson is dead.
The (maybe) revolution in Iran has fallen off the front pages.
And I can do nothing but twiddle my thumbs, not care a feather or a fig, and take a personality test that should show me the real direction I should be going toward in my dating exploits.
Uh huh. Yeah.
It’s July 4th, and I’m not at a parade eating a brat, watching grown men in fezzes driving tiny cars and covering my ears at the live cannons toted by the Civil War reenactors. Instead, I’m burning up in a bathing suit in a far too sunny Tel Aviv flat, alternating between reading a bad book, watching BBC tv, and drinking herbal tea. And I kinda really wish I were at the parade or the local fair or a friendly barbecue. Ah, the life of an expat. Always between worlds. It’s my yearly painful push pull struggle with patriotism coming to a head. But I won’t let it bother me too much. I think I can handle it. Who doesn’t love a nice cold bottle of white wine, the “Antiques Roadshow,” and Dan Brown’s petty prose? A decent way to spend the holy sabbath, right?
So…as a brief update on my last post, about being consistent, doing things every day…I’ve not been entirely successful. Of course. And I have no excuse, and I don’t know why. I must try harder. Period. What I have done is apply to tons of jobs. And network. And I may have a job very soon. Which is great. Really great. Not a dream job, but a job that pays more than minimum wage, a job in an office, with air conditioning, that will help me get back on my feet financially after going through my savings these last 8-9 months. I have also been sleeping much better, although I’ve not made my midnight nighty-night deadline. I have been calling friends. AND I have been making a decent effort to work earlier in the day…as in before noon, although I’ve tried for before 10 am. Not bad. Except for the major thing, the first thing on the list: working on my book.
Avoiding the book is not new. I could have had it done in much better shape a year ago or even more. I am so scared, so afraid of it failing…or you could say the flip…I’m so afraid of it succeeding wildly…that I prefer to default and not try at all. But that would be cowardly. I do occasionally triumph over my cowardice, hence, the phase when I did nothing but finish the book to the end…the stroke of brilliant courage that had me enlist and hire a critic/teacher. Now, I need to see it to a close. It’s just so much easier to use the current situation (financial panic/instability), that I’m blinded. Quite blind. I need to get over it. Do small things. Ease into it. Not be frightened to open the documents. Do some reading, some research. And then it should work like clockwork again. It’s not easy, but the task is virtually impossible if I don’t even begin.
Maybe it has to do with my personality type. So, I was randomly surfing HuffPo and came across this article, all about how everyone has a type. The article leads to an article and quiz on Chemistry.com. And I’m always up for a pseudo-scientific quiz. And I found out, according to the quiz, that I am a Negotiator (primary personality type) / Director (secondary personality type). And, it says that I’m attracted to the sort of opposite combination (Director/Negotiator). Weird thing is, I think I’m even, not primary/secondary. I might even be more of a director than a negotiator. Here are my results. Or maybe the results were right…I need to stop “negotiating” with myself and be more “direct” and force myself to drop everything and WORK ON THAT BOOK! Yes. In any case, the article and quiz were quite convincing, so I do recommend it to those singletons who are interested in honing their dating skills. There are apparently only four types: directors, explorers, negotiators, and builders…and if we can identify what we are, and what is the best match for us…we can more easily identify it…right? Let’s hope.
As for me…this is as close as I’ll get to my favorite Shriners this year…have a great Independence Day, all! Eat a brat for me!
Discipline. Rather, self-discipline. AND consistency. Two very big issues of mine. When I work for other people, or when I’m in a structured situation like in a university, I meet my deadlines. I don’t let other people or myself down. It’s hard. I wait until the last minute a lot. But I do it. And I succeed. Perhaps it’s why I have thrived in very deadline driven places and occupations. I’m an excellent student and an excellent publicist.
On my own, however, I’m so crappy at self-discipline, I feel like I regularly fail myself. Is it because I have nobody to “please,” nobody looking over my shoulder and judging me? Am I incapable of function without external criticism and expectation?
What am I getting to here? I don’t know the answers to why I am this way. It relates to a lot of what I talk about with my therapist, of course. What I do know is that this pattern of scary inactivity and shame has to stop. Must. I’m an adult. I have so much going for me. If I don’t want to tread water, I don’t have to. I just have to make a decision, create a plan, and stick to it. Even if nobody is watching.
So, what to do? Where to start? I think a good thing to begin with is to establish a routine. Make sure there are things that I do every day. Not once or twice per week. Every day. Why? Because you’re more likely to be successful if there’s no way to get out of it (i.e. oh, it’s my weekly task, but I’m so busy, I’ll do it tomorrow). Sure, I’ve got some weekly things (primarily my therapist and some other semi-regular doctors’ appointments). They help to keep me “human” and get me out of the house. It’s a good start. But it’s nowhere near enough. Nowhere near enough. This is an article from HuffPo on the topic. It got me thinking, and I even bookmarked this specific page on my toolbar. I look at it daily.
And now, I’ve got to implement some of this. Now. I want to be able to look back at this month and know that I work hard and achieved some results. I want to be proud of myself on this big birthday.
To Do Every Day for 29 Days (and maybe much more…)
Write/edit my book for at least one hour, and preferable two or three.
Apply to three jobs/send three resumes to employment agencies.
Call at least two friends.
Get at least six hours of sleep every night and attempt to go to sleep before midnight.
Begin the above “work” in the morning hours (i.e. before 10 am).
I think these things are do-able. It’s a short list. Which is good. Because it still looks daunting to me. Imagine – the fact that going to bed at midnight and forcing myself to sleep six straight hours being “scary” to me. However, everything on this list is easy as apple pie. I am very capable. I finished writing this book. I did. Yes, editing is hard. Harder. But I think I’ve reached a mountain peak in this process. It’s hard to go down, sometimes harder than going up, sure. But this time, I can clearly see where I’m going, right? And the resume thing? It has to be done. I should perhaps add door-knocking or follow-up calling, etc, to the list, but I don’t think it’s realistic to do daily. If I do three a day, that’s 15 per week. And truth be told, once you apply to one or two jobs online, it’s just as easy to apply to five or ten. It’s just time consuming. Not “difficult.” So if I can stick to my guns here, I’ll inevitably be applying to more than three per day.
Good plan. Yes, good plan. At the end of the month, I should have a far more solid draft of my book, ready to go out to agents and publishers. And I may have a part time, full time, or contract kind of job. And these are things I need. I need them. I want to be able to hold my head high come July 31. I want to round off this decade in style. With some dignity.
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
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?
Now what is that header supposed to mean? Who knows? Who cares? It’s hot as balls (a new expression of my sister’s…e.g. “I’m sweating balls”) here in Tel Aviv, and although there are breezes coming through the huge open windows, I’m still sticky and uncomfortable…and risking flying cockroaches because of said open windows.
And I’ve got decisions to make. Again. As always. Why isn’t life simple? Well, I suppose if you believe it’s complex, well, it will be. If I believed in a simple solution, I think I could find it. Simply. Where am I going?
I was offered a job. To sell art. Fine art. Aboard a cruise ship. And I was excited as hell for the opportunity. Until I did the research. And found out many past employees have felt swindled, betrayed, lied to, taken advantage of, underpaid, and much worse. Past customers have discovered their works were grossly overpriced upon returning home, and sometimes even finding that some of the paintings are suspected forgeries. There are class action law suits. There are whole websites devoted to how bad this is. And this is where I want to work?
Back to why it sounds good on paper: 6-12% commission. Free travel. Free room and board. Fine art. Picasso. Chagall. Miro. Dali. Yup. There you have it. The “love boat,” the finest art the world has ever known, and the chance to make six figures.
But those tales of woe are scary. And I’ve just come back from two months of roaming in a year when I spent more than 3 months out of 7 outside of the country. The thought of just being able to amass a huge chunk of change. Being able to make a down payment on a mortgage. Being able to write and not worry for another year or more. And getting this wad of cash doing something interesting and sexy like traveling on a luxurious cruise liner. Wow.
I’ll tell you a secret: almost anyone reading this blog can qualify for this job. Honest. Just go to Monster. It’s there. Always.
And I’ve come off my meds. Experiment. I was so inspired by my Chinese medicine doc. So inspired by having felt good for a few days. Let’s get off of everything. Let’s take herbs. Let’s have talk therapy. Let’s work a decent honest job. Pay rent. Just live for a while. Just live. And it will all be OK.
That was yesterday.
And the existential dilemma crept back in again. My old friend. Meaninglessness. Ambiguity. Hopelessness. The fact that life really really really really sucks. It’s dreadful. People are hungry. Starving. We are killing all the plants. We are suffocating ourselves. We are stupid, and we don’t care. And yet. And yet. Life is so beautiful it’s nearly impossible to contain the joy I sometimes feel at being able to smell a strong-scented flower while walking down the street or at seeing children playing in a garden or thinking about a favorite book or poem or television series. We are stupid, stupid geniuses. That’s what. And it’s both. It’s the paradoxicality of us. Yes, I think I just made up a word. Spell checker hates it. And here I go again:
will I ever be able to love, does it matter, of course it does, no it doesn’t, it’s only important that i can recognize the importance of love, experiencing it directly is a privilege that may not ever be afforded to me, but that’s ok, right? right. wrong. or maybe if I feel love for my sister or for a book, or for life itself, or for my fellow human beings, that’s enough, that’s love. no. what the hell is love anyway? fondness? no. too easy. will I ever have kids? do I even want them anymore? they say it’s real true love. you know it then. shall I selfishly have kids so that I can know love? is that how it works? is having children ALWAYS innately a selfish act? reproducing one’s face? one’s abilities? one’s talents? one’s blue eyes? it reminds me of the speech from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, yes, of course, when Viola (disguised as Cesario) is sent to woo Olivia on behalf of Orsino, and she says, “you will leave no copy”…that one could be so beautiful, it would be a sin not to leave a genetic copy on earth to live on after you are gone…is it narcisim? does it matter….no, no, no, no…nothing matters. because nothing matters. we live. we die. we are always dying just as we are always living. nothing alive is alive forever, just as everything dead must have had the privilege of life. it’s the same thing, right? right. no. no. no. I need to sleep. yes, i need to sleep. i am forcing insomnia upon myself. i am doing it to myself. stop.
Have a mentioned that I’ve a new addiction? For “The Office”. The genius television series. That’s right. I’m in it for Jim and Pam. I have to see them. How they get together. Because those actors got it. They are astounding. It’s so real. And I can feel the love between them so palpably. Did I mention I’ve started from the beginning? From series one? Yes. I have. I know they’re together and engaged and the season 5 finale was awesome for them. But I have to know, I just have to know how they got there. Which is why I haven’t been sleeping. It’s been suggested I should read Angels and Demons or some other good book. But I think I’ll finish the series.
Thanks for reading. If you have. And if you’re reading this. You have. So, thanks.
My cat may or may not have plummeted four storeys last night and cannot be found, my father is very ill in hospital with a freak infection, I was eaten alive by mosquitos last night, I’m quite nauseated and sore in the mouth from having my teeth cleaned and flourided an hour ago, and it’s already something like 35 degrees (100 F) at 9:30 am.
How is it I am surprisingly calm? Have I somehow acheived a Zen-like state of being able to open and close and compartmentalize emotions like a pro? Not a chance. Exhaustion? Perhaps. I’ve either not entirely gotten over jet-lag or I require so little sleep I’ll soon become a superhero or I’m just a nocturnal semi-insomniac. I suspect it’s a combination of the three. And in addition, I’m taking Cymbalta. I’m afraid this may be the real culprit. Some genuine panic wouldn’t hurt around now. But somehow, all I want is a nap before starting the day’s tasks…seeing as I got 3 hours sleep or less having had to wake early for an 8:00 am dental cleaning.
The day’s tasks you ask? Appling for jobs. Editing my novel. Preparing for an interview I have tomorrow (on Skype, that’s a first). Seeing my therapist (praying I’ll be able to keep seeing/paying her). And going out for drinks with an acquaintance that I hope will become a good friend. A good day’s work, no? I think so. If I’m able to perform even some of it, it will be a miracle. My mother is still in Israel, the cat(s) are living downtown at “her” new place into which I’ll be moving into and paying dearly for next month, there’s my father about whom I may be on the phone all day (they think he’s got e. coli from a simple biopsy procedure, antibiotics are not working, and they’re calling the CDC…and all of his immediate family are hundreds if not thousands of miles away), I may need to place “lost cat” posters around the neighborhood, and who knows…I have no problem finding any number of stupid things to worry about.
So ya wanna hear about the jobs I’m going to apply for…do ya, do ya, do ha? I know you do! Here’s a quick rundown: several content writing jobs (in plain English – getting paid well above average salaries for writing stuff on websites in excellent English grammar…as well as “blogging” and forum hosting and other silly easy stuff like that); a very part time job (like every other weekend) at an art gallery; some freelance writing (fake journalism at its very worst); potentially some secretarial, etc. Dull as dogsh*t. Luckily I am still leading wine tastings with my lovely precious wonderful winery a few times a week. I’m hoping I can piece-meal this all together. I need another very regular decently paying part-time job or a a full-time job that doesn’t bore me or bother me too much ethically. Or a couple of part-time gigs that together make life interesting enough and allow me to eat. It will be OK. It will be. I hope.
So, since I’ve been back, I’ve not been too productive. I have located some jobs but haven’t applied yet. I really need to start editing the book for several hours a day, starting now, but have been too busy (aka I haven’t made the time because lord knows, I have found the time to watch The Office until 4 am on a couple occasions). And my dear, dear mother is driving me up the wall. And I need to make nice. She leaves Thursday. I need to find a way to make some peace. Even if I don’t entirely mean it. Because I love her. I just really dislike her a lot of the time. And I hate that I do. But I cannot change the fact that I cringe around her. That I often find myself wanting to scream or in fact screaming at her in her presence. That looking at her makes my blood boil. Only sometimes. Only sometimes. Like last night when we were on the phone to the hospital and she showed no emotion, not much concern, chatted to her friends (who were at my father’s bedside instead of her) about the party she just had, how changing her travel plans will be difficult and that she wanted to wait to see what the verdict was. And I’m sitting there about to cry. If it were my husband, I’d be on the next plane. Bitch.
OK. I’ll stop. Because I’ve just been informed that I need to make “lost cat” posters. Damn. I wish I had an emotional response to this. Perhaps this is my mother’s normal state. But he is just a cat. Oh dear. Poor kitty. He was such a character. Was? Goodness I’m morbid. Poor kitty. Now I’m feeling it. How could my sister leave the windows open on a fourth storey apartment with cats in it all night long?
Wish me luck. Poor kitty.
My kitties when they were babies...the missing one is the male, the one on the right
Got into Warsaw yesterday afternoon, and by the grace of whatever, actually got to my hostel in under 2 hours. Had me a solid 4-5 hours of sunny evening walks and sightseeing and dinner. Came back exhausted and collapsed shortly after 10 pm, while trying to watch a movie on my laptop (I got a private room in this nice hostel — woo hoo for a private shower, private kitche, sunny room with double bed!)…and proceeded to wake up at 2:30 am (it being 7 pm in Chicago or something like that)…and I couldn’t fall back asleep. 4 am rolls around, I make a cup of tea and turn the movie back on…and after an hour, I’m sleeping again. Of course. Sun is already streaming into the room (even before at 4 am!), I wake at 8am, then 9 am, then 10 am, when I drag myself up (breakfast ends at 11, checkout at noon). And now I have 40 minutes to get out of the bedroom and out onto the streets. See, one day of sightseeing is all well and good on paper. Gorgeous short romantic layover in Eastern European capital city…fab…until the jet lag and general fatigue from over two months’ travel bog you down.
Sure, I’ve got a few things to go back and see — the palace of science and culture, which looks more like a primitive sky scraper out of a marvel comic book — perfect to hang Kind Kong off of…the Warsaw Uprising Museum (I really don’t want to spend the day inside stuffy museums, though…), Jewish stuff, which as a Jew I really should do (hey, that rhymes!)…but the ghetto is almost entirely gone, and I don’t fancy walking all over creation to find some half crumbled wall…and did I mention my feeet are hurting. Yet again, the great traveller has packed the wrong shoes, developed blisters and scraped the skin off the top of her toes…and did I mention they are heeled shoes, too? And off I go.
At least it’s super pretty here. Geraniums everywhere. Beautiful geraniums, in long rows, red as blood. And the reconstructed old city and new city (which is almost as old)…maybe I’ll just go back there and hang out in cafes and eat ice cream all day…sounds a lot nicer than war monuments, even more Holocaust education, and getting even more blisters trying to find all these places.
Before I get depressing here, enjoy this fantastic video:
It’s my last day in the USA. I’m really sad and trying not to acknowledge it. It’s not been long enough for me. Or too long, who knows. I will miss our old family house. I will miss Skokie. I will miss the convenience of malls, driving, Barnes and Nobles, Victoria’s Secrets, Pinkberry (which I discovered in LA), super dooper pharmacies that are bigger than grocery stores (I think I bought out the local CVS yesterday…stuff you can’t find abroad…), Starbucks and their non-chain counterparts, and much much more. I will have to have my last Starbucks today, my last look at Skokie, my last sit down in my comfy armchair with a book, a remote control, and a laptop. Back to life. Back to reality. And of course, I’ll miss the library most.
I spent yesterday going through 27 boxes (I’m not kidding) of my books and knick knacks in my parents’ crawl space. And I chose here and there what to take/ship back to Israel with me. It’s heartbreaking. Part of me wants to just decide on a home. Just pick a place, get an apartment that I can afford and that I like well enough, and just get all of my books in one place. One place. Bookshelves as far as the eye can see. Because I feel like I am what I’ve read. And I love to have these books around me. They feel like friends. Physical manifestation of memories. I know lots of people use their parents’ homes as storage for a few years (or decades) or maybe they just forget about that stuff. But I have sooooo many books. Over a thousand. Maybe if I can figure out how to surround myself with my books, I will finally be happy. Fat chance. I know. Sounds a lot more like a buffer, a mask, a wall guarding me from reality and the outside world. But books are so beautiful. So very beautiful. Because they open minds and worlds, and they’re life changing and exciting. Ah! I often wish there were no such thing as success, ambition, careers, jobs, groceries, responsibilities, and that I could just stay in bed or a comfortable chair and read all day and night long. Oh, to live in a library!
And my behavior patterns have returned to the exceptionally unhealthy ones of the worst phases of mine in Israel. Not going to sleep, even though I show many symptoms of extreme exhaustion. Instead I stay awake watching corny sympathetic old movies, over and over again. And don’t brush my teeth and face before I plop under the covers. And all I want to do is curl up and sleep. Read a book. And not go out. Even though it’s New York City!!!! What the hell is wrong with me?
I’m going back to Israel, that’s what. I’m close to broke, that’s what. And reality and genuine decisions loom. My ornery scary grandmother will be at my door, screaming at me and scolding me about not having paid some bill or other or not being nice to some relative or other, or any such other thing that is none of her business. My mother who I’ve not been speaking to often will be there again for another week or two…wanting to repair our relationship…wanting me to tell her why I’m angry…wanting to dump all her responsibilities on me…wanting me to cook the entire spread for her going away party/housewarming party next week.
So…have I enjoyed myself? Has it been a good trip? Yes. I think it has. I miss a lot here. If I were to come back Stateside, it might be good for me. I miss intellectuals. I miss kindness. Whether it be genuine or not, even the illusion of kindness soothes me. I found myself elbowing my way througha line yesterday on the subway…the only one…people let me through without question…so bad, so bad, so miserably bad. Then again, I need to repair me for a bit longer. I need to work on writing and make money and be in one place for a while. And I can do that anywhere without picking up and changing my life drastically. I think I will come back home. America is home, I’ve realized. But not just yet. Not just yet.
What will I do when I’m back?
Edit book until it is done
Get a job – wine tasting is there but not very profitable…consider bookstore, teaching English privately, teaching English with a company, applying for anything temp or part time that looks white color enough and easy, and maybe just maybe consider food service…but give every establishment a good once over before starting.
Send out book to close friends/good readers (they must be both) and then some agents and publishing houses
See friends
That’s it. Book, money, friends. How hard can it be? Right?
Before I leave the US, I have to go through my old books and knick knacks and see what I want to take or send to Israel. Boxes and boxes in my parents’ crawl space. Oh well. And then there’s two days in Warsaw. Yup. Maybe it’ll be really good for me. Real transition time I need. Not American. Not Israeli. Confusing. And Perfect. Shake one off. Prep for another. All while eating blini and perogies and potatoes and vodka. Right? Right.
It is possible to miss people even more when you are with them than when you are not. When without them, rich deliciousness colors your memories. Reality is far more boring. And often more tragic. Why it is so difficult to relish that which is today, baffles me so. Because so often, when today has turned to yesterday, it is far sweeter (or at the very least, less bitter) and far more easy to digest. Today remains unpalatable. Yesterday is a recycled leftover, doctored up with herbs and spices and bits and pieces of makebelieve. Tomorrow, a dreamed up recipe about to be tried.
I’m in Delaware. I’ve been welcomed heartily, offended, alienated, ignored, tolerated, bored and warmly hosted, all in a period of about eighteen hours. This place was never a dream of a past for me. I’m not sure what I expected. But as I’m an adult now, I know I have choices. I relish my choices. And it’s nice to know that when I suffer or tolerate a situation, I do have the power to change it. I just choose not to more often than not.
Almost eight years ago I moved down here. And I proceeded to live here for one year. It was life changing. It was important. And it sucked big time, too. It was joyous and hopeless and interesting and painful and comfortable. And then I got the hell out. And the people I loved who stayed around here…well…they’ve changed and stayed the same. Of course. There’s a well-intentioned but highly silly Horseshoe Crab Festival. A bankrupt community theatre in a historic cinema building. Fields as far as the eye can see full of soybean and God knows what. Ponds. Streams. Trout. Squirrels. Possums. And too much new development. And maybe it’s good, too. Oh, yes, did I mention lesbians as far as the eye can see? Yes. I found myself surrounded by a good hundred of them last night, all over the age of 45, all with jeans pulled up to their breasts, short poofy hair, or short shaved hair, or short mullet hair (you get the picture), and men’s polo shirts or loose fitting clothes out of the Golden Girls. It was such a fashion nightmare, any designer or fashionista would faint (I would bet money) on sighting this phenomenon. I love lesbians. I kind of used to be one. And I often loathe their society. What can you do.
And that’s Delaware. I don’t belong. Perhaps because I belong nowhere unless I decide I do. I don’t enjoy being merely tolerated and sometimes grudgingly so when given the impression that I am wanted. But I’m an adult. And I can let it fall away. I can pick up a book and sit by the pond and write and eat ice cream and take care of my damned self thank you very much. And I will. And I’ll bake a liquor soaked powdered sugar pound cake. So there.
Happy D-Day folks. Let’s remember that bit of bravery from 65 years ago and have some pride that we were once a species with a noble spirit.
I love Improv Everywhere. They cause “scenes of chaos and joy in public places.” Their missions are hysterically funny and often heartwarming and surprisingly touching. Check out their latest mission. It’s my good thought for the night. As I should be sleeping, terribly exhausted and need to head to the airport in 6 hours, at least I’m grinning from cheek to cheek. Enjoy!
Life is so short. But sometimes it seems to endlessly long and impossible to maneuver. But I’m in a good mood. And I want to revel in beautiful things. I’m thinking of starting a blog devoted to more positive things, a poem a day, a picture a day, a video a day on a happy nice funny friendly beautiful thing. That way I will force myself to think of goodness, of beauty every single day. Especially when it’s difficult for me. Too seek it instead of waiting for it to be revealed to me. After all, “a thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
So, here we go. Some beautiful things that have brought me some joy in recent days:
Black Heels to Tractor Wheels – the online real-life story of the “Pioneer Woman,” Ree Drummond. It’s incredible. Like a romance novel. Only real. Which makes it all the better.
Cows in Goa - I took this photo. I was there. It's real. And they are that content.
Absolutely Beautiful Things – a design blog from Australia with lots of pretty pictures. A world I would love to live in sometimes.
Prosecco and Pizza in Positano - a meal my sister and I thorougly enjoyed and will remember for years and years to come
Prayer
by Carol Ann Duffy, Britain’s new poet laureate
Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.
Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.
Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.
I am so tired, and it really doesn’t seem like I have much reason to be. I slept nearly ten hours last night. Well…except that I have been on six (looong) flights over the course of the last three weeks, have endeavored to see many friends (requiring long freeway drives and/or train rides), and have carried around copious amounts of luggage (I have yet to really master the art of packing, although I’ve gotten close…I just don’t really give a crap this time).
And I’m making all of these stupid justifications why? I don’t know. I just feel lazy if I’m not doing everything. I mean, that’s why I’m here! Vacation, see friends, see family. No big deal. My father invited me to go to the theatre last night…an amazing production of Twelfth Night. I turned him down. We went to the movies last night instead. Pixar’s new film, Up. And as I sat in the audience, I was asking myself why oh why was I there, and could I stay awake through an animated film, even though it was only 9:15 pm. And I have so many friends left to see, excellent, good, lovely old friends, as well as some new delightful ones. And I cannot, I just cannot get myself to get in the car and drive the hour and a bit and search for overly expensive parking every single day to see them. I can’t. I’m too tired. And I feel like a shit for it. I just don’t want to drive anywhere. And in America, cars are the name of the game. Where is my cafe down the street? The market around the corner?
Maybe it’s the new meds. A new friend told me she was on Cymbalta, too, and she couldn’t get over the side effect of fatigue, more than two years on. Maybe it wasn’t good for me to learn that. I don’t think I considered a medical reason for my tiredness before then.
The good fun stuff? Yes, despite the clouds, there is always a silver lining. I’ve watched all of John Le Carre’sTinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and I’m making headway into the last part of the trilogy, Smiley’s People. Thank God for Netflix. And for British television. And Alec Guinness. And the fact that I can do this at home on a sofa, swaddled in woolen blankets, sipping herbal tea and eating roasted almonds. Espionage is always best when watched from the safety of home with a hot beverage.
Patrick Steward as Karla and Alec Guinness as Smiley
And aside from being overwhelmed by American TV, the news, Judge Sotomayor, John and Kate plus eight (do I care? no), a minor Huffington Post addiction, and anxiety about whether or not I’ll be able to see all of my friends for five seconds before I yet again leave town in about five days…I’m doing OK. A potential solution: invite people over to me. Yes. A get together, a barbecue, a hoedown, a potluck, a chance to chew the cud quietly in that nice homey safe suburban atmosphere… Yes. Let them find me. I’m just too tired. And I’m not sure why.
Three days in LA. A nice time was had. And except for the fact that I will be missing my good good old friend here, I’m OK to be leaving. LA has not redeemed itself. It has it’s moments. Some gorgeous buildings. A beautiful beach. Healthy food. Decent weather. But on the down side, it is one giant strip mall that you have to traverse in freeways for the majority of your existence. No amount of palm trees can really make up for that. The smog really sucks. And the foggy smoggy icky grey mornings are no fun, either. There’s no hip happenin’ single downtown area. You always need a designated driver or be willing to pay a huge bundle for taxis.
But the highlights I’m taking with me were very worth the visit. And I’ll visit again. While here, I:
Learned to Samba dance — it was not easy, but it was very fun and eye opening.
Made some new friends/acquaintances
Met up with some very interesting people (amongst them, filmmakers, a rocket scientist, an actress, a choral conductor, a french horn player, and an award winning journalist), old friends and acquaintances, and it made my heart so happy to have quality conversations with them
Had a real barbecue with real English sausages (aka bangers), pure pork, no seasoning, nothing else…except for maybe salt and some water…so very very tasty
Ate excellent and cheap sushi
Walked Venice beach on a perfect sunny day, dipped my feet on the Pacific Ocean, and watched a sea lion dive in an out of the waves just off shore
So…so long, LA, I hardly know you, and that’s OK. I wanted to see the Getty and for some reason, the La Brea tar pits…but they will wait for another occasion. Unless a strong quake hits and they all fall into the sea. But then we’ll have bigger problems, won’t we.
I had a decent day. That should be something to celebrate. A decent couple of days. Yesterday I was in Jerusalem seeing good friends, hanging out, laughing, and even participated in an impromptu evening barbecue on the rooftop of a friend’s hippie-digs in a fun secular-religious-mixed-up-ancient-hippie neighborhood called Nachla’ot. Spicy sausage and marinated chicken thighs. Oh yah.
Today, I had breakfast with my sister (totally forgot about the plans and went in hastily thrown on clothes and an unwashed face) at a nice cafe. Made the mistake of ordering the only thing I’m kind of allowed to eat without realizing that it was the most expensive thing on the menu. Ya, I paid around ten bucks, US, for a bowl of plain yogurt. ‘Cause I can’t eat sugar or yeast. Which means no fruit or sweet muesli or honey. Or anything else cheaper on the menu, for that matter, like pastries or breakfast sandwiches.
Tomer Reshef Salon
Then I went and got my hair cut with my mom. I have the best, the very best hair stylist in Israel. Maybe in the world. They call her the queen of the curly-haired people. And goodness knows, more people in Israel than in any other place in the world have curly hair. Or wavy hair. Or frizzy huge undefinable hair. The whole Jew-fro thing. Yah. This lady conquered it all. If you can read Hebrew, or just want to see some cool hair photos, visit this article about Tomer Reshef’s Salon in a very hip designer-laden area of south Tel Aviv. The philosophy is this: if you don’t use conditioner, your hair won’t frizz. And I can safely say, it is true. Takes some time. But you can use a great aromatic natural oil “mask” after you wash your hair and leave it in. Helps the curls stick. It’s an all natural place.
My mother annoys me very quickly. Luckily, as she was getting her hair colored and it would take another hour, I used the time to find wholesale warehouse kinda priced framers. South Tel Aviv rocks. It’s old. It’s crumbly in areas. It’s dirty. But it’s got the goods. Furniture, clothes, you name it, warehouse style. In Italy, I bought a lot of great artwork. Signed stuff, original prints, great souvenirs, but some of the stuff I know I’m going to love looking at for years. And unlike my usual self (I have bought amazing art in the past, only to have put off framing for so long as to have forgotten it in boxes…for years), I took care of framing immediately. I’m so excited to have picutres, my own pictures, with good frames and glass and matting, that I have chosen. Such a relief, after living in someone else’s artist’s studio, stacks of paintings, walls full of paintings, none framed or framed well, none that I’ve chosen to be up there. I shouldn’t be speaking so of my grandfather’s work. People ooh and ahh when they visit me here. It’s all a colorful picnic in theory…but you wouldn’t want to live there, ya know.
I will sum up with this, as I write too damned much, and I know people aren’t getting to the end. Have you ever heard of a sabich? It’s kind of like a sandwich. Similar to falafel. Hails from Iraq. Well, I love them. And I had one today at my favorite place to get them: Sabick Frishman, on the corner of Frishman and Dizingoff. Just imagine, if you will…a whole pita, slit on top so you can smear the inside with hummus, tahini, a spicy chili-like paste, and amba (another sauce, bright orangey-yellow, very spicy and curry-flavored, made out of pickled mangos), filled with deep fried eggplant slices, sliced up hard-boiled egg, and chunks of baked potato, topped with finely chopped tomato salad, slices of onion (sprinkled with red sumac – a heavenly spice – that’s what really makes shawarma taste like shawarma, if you were interested), cilantro, more tahini, and a special spicy mixed vegetable salad. You can then choose on your own to put various pickled and/or curried-pickled veggies on top. It is heaven. Feast your eyes on this:
After I ate, I went to this fab tiny little used book store with a (relatively) huge English-language sci-fi section. Did you know there seem to be hundreds of spin-off Star Trek books? I found an entire shelf of Star Trek Voyager novels. Bizarre. Do they take place after the crew gets back to the Alpha Quadrant? Or during the Delta Quadrant voyage, and the authors somehow find a way to not mess up the TV show’s plotline? Weird. Who reads this stuff? And why do there seem to be many, many authors? Who keeps the storylines straight? Who safeguards the characters? Wonder if I should give it a try. The reading or the writing…ha!
G’night y’all. I have to get back to reading manuscripts. I’m a big-ass procrastinator. Gotta be ready by 8 am. And it’s 11:45 pm. Ahhh!
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:
Quit job that was bad for my soul
Went to India, a questionable time was had, but I went
I went to Ireland, and it was amazing, and it gave me career ideas and made a good friend
I went to Italy and Croatia and Greece and Turkey with the whole family, and even though I “just went,” it was an experience
I did complete a real first draft of the novel
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…
I have been dating. Kind of. Without great effort. But it’s kind of something.
Therapy has been good.
Blogging has been fun and seems productive, even though I don’t get paid for it.
Found a cool part part part time job leading wine tastings
Cooked a lot of scrummy family meals for my uncle and cousins
Got two great cats
Have made huge strides in being a clean, responsible adult who does laundry and makes her bed more than once in a blue moon
Have really made a big effort to see friends, and it’s paying off, even though I’ve backpedaled and slumped in spurts.
I learned I could draw, really well.
Professionally catered one giant birthday party
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:
Finish a second draft of the novel
Send out samples and intro letters to agents and publishers
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…)
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.
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!
Good morning, world! It’s a Saturday. And I have about 9 days left in Israel. It’s kind of a “vacation” amount of time…except for that I live here. I have something like 8 important appointments to keep in the next week…amazing that I was able to schedule them all…ranging from my psychiatrist, to my waxist, to my Chinese medicine doctor, and much, much, more. And today…nothing to do but enjoy a family lunch in celebration of my cousin’s 17th birthday…and tolerate my increasingly annoying mother who is staying with me for a couple days. It’s a long story. Don’t ask now, I don’t feel like telling it. She came back from Italy with me and is staying until the end of June. Which is a good thing I’m coming to the States in 9 days!
Some thoughts.
Star Trek Voyager. A great TV series. Not my abolute favorite Star Trek series (that would be TNG). But something about the modernity of it, the better effects, the younger more sexy romantic situations, the isolation of the Delta quadrant…make it all very fun to watch. And, I don’t think I mention my love of Star Trek, and of Star Trek Voyager too much on my blog. Maybe a small handful of times. Certainly, I don’t think I’ve ever devoted an entire entry to it. But for some reason, in the last two weeks, most of my traffic has been coming from people searching for Star Trek Voyager. Upwards of 50 people a day, sometimes. For a teeny tiny non-profession and don’t wanna be kinda blog like mine, that’s surprising. Thanks trekkie guys! I don’t think I’m contributing much to the online trekkie-sphere, but I’m curious as to why everyone’s been coming to me.
Other thoughts. I read two great sci-fi books in the last few weeks. Classics that I should have read years ago. One that I started, in fact, when I was 12, but put down in the first five pages or so. And I’m kind of glad I waited. The more sci-fi I read, the less I understand why it’s a genre. Do you know why it’s a genre? I mean, any book that involves outer space or the future is categorized as sci-fi. Even stuff that doesn’t happen in space, but is merely an imagined sort of near-future with some imagined new technology, is sci-fi. Because sci-fi books, the best of them, usually have little to do with science directly. They are so much more about that human condition, social commentary, and excellent storytelling. So what, they happen to happen in space?! Was 1984 considered sci-fi? Was Brave New World? Maybe they were. But besides Jules Verne, at the time, I don’t suppose there was much of a “genre” around. Anyway, I read books. Excellent books. If they happen to be sci-fi, fine. And I love forward-minded writers. Who often happen to write stories that take place in the future or out in space. Oh well.
The two books I read and loved reading every minute I was reading them are, Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, and Foundation by Isaac Asimov, the latter being the one I attempted reading back in 1992. Apparently, I have a whole series to enjoy now, from each of these books. Ender’s Game I started reading at the Ashram, moving from dim light to dim light at night, trying to squint my way through the pages and avoid the loud trans music that was intermittantly being blasted all over the compound. And Foundation, funnily enough, I found at the Budapest airport as I was waiting for my flight to Rome on a 5 hour layover. It called to me. It was one of the few books in English at one of those portable book stalls between gates, bright orange, with the name Asimov popping off the spine. When I try and subsequently fail to like a book, the memory stays with me, and I felt compelled to redeem my 12-year-old self from the shame of having rejected Asimov. So there, I was, engrossed in the fall of the Empire, my bags of duty free Hungarian Tokaij dangling from my arm as I waited to board. It made my vacation, too. I finished Foundation on the cliffs of Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre national park, nothing but blue sea and sky and a slowly setting sun before me.
Last thought of the moment (as I really need to shower and dress and wrap birthday gifts in the 37 minutes I have left). Did you ever consider how likely it is that you are? What I mean by that is, how likely was your conception and birth? There are people out there who are likelier than me. People whose parents were high school sweethearts, whose grandparents were the same, who come from the same types of communities, maybe the same religion, ethnic background, etc. Then there are highly unlikely people. Like our current president. How likely was it that a white, white, white girl, originally from Kansas, living in Hawaii, met a Kenyan student? How likely? In my case, my very crazy Israeli mother met and married an American tourist she knew for less than two weeks, an American tourist who happened to be from Chicago…she then endured four years of a crappy abusive marriage to him in Chicago before getting up the courage to divorce him. Then, in all the craziness of her single life in Chicago, she and her roommates have a party, invite tons of random people, including my father’s cousin E, a woman my mother met at a bathhouse of all places. E brings my dad, right out of college, to this house party. Do they get together then? No. Months later, my mother is set up on a blind double date by none other than this woman E. She doesn’t like her date, but her friend’s date happens to by my dad, whom my mother recognizes. And here’s the thing. My mother would never have dated this pasty, tall, gangly, freckled, bizarro had he told her his real age! That’s right. He lied and told her he was 25. My mother was 28, and that even put her off. But had she known that he was really 23, OMG. So, crazy Israeli woman, somehow gets to Chicago via a spontaneous stupid marriage. Pasty-white, gangly, American, right out of college, totally out of his league, happens to meet this woman through bizarre encounters. Yes, they are both Jewish. That’s the only similarity. Because their families both hated this relationship. Am I likely? Am I? I don’t think so. Maybe more likely than Obama. But not by much.
I spent more than six hours exploring the archaeological ruins of Pompeii today, along with my kid sister. Well, she’s 24 and a super duper archeology student in Israel and has already successfully managed an archaeological excavation. So, it’s not really like I came in blind on this. I have dreamed of coming to Pompeii since I was eight years old.
I remember that chapter in my social studies textbook like it was yesterday…
Visions of people simply frozen in time, covered in ash, a poor little dog cowers, food left in bowls, a lively, thriving civilization suffocated in an instant, to be forgotten for centuries.
Pompeii House, as it is today
And it was everything I could possibly have imagined. It’s perfect. Untouched. A whole town. Shops and food stalls and gorgeous mansions and apartments alike, temples and government buildings, theatres, palaces. The works. A town. A really nice one. The thing I loved the most was that I completely got the feeling of what it must have been like to live there. The houses are beautiful, charming, comfortable places to live in. The art is still there. Frescoes with the timeless stories of Apollo, Venus, Jupiter, Juno. The town brothel, yes, even a real true blue brothel, complete with what I now call the Roman Kama Sutra – Frescoes of men and women doin’ it in many different positions, above the doors of the sex rooms – yup, little tiny rooms with nothing more than a bed in them – still there – off of one corridor. Five rooms down, five rooms up. Must have had a lot of business. AND I just read on someone else’s outdated website that there have been 34 brothels found in Pompeii thus far. I’m not sure how true that is, but having more than one or two is logical…I mean, healthy business requires competition, after all. But then again, 34! This person claims a lot of sailors and travelers would have been passing through, so it was only logical. Right. OK. Brothels were called Lupinariums (Lupinaria?), our house of wolves. Wolves? Women as she wolves? Here are some of the raunchy frescoes:
When I get to a place where I have more time (I’m at my small B&B in the outskirts of Sorrento) I may upload some of the pics we took today. Charming stuff. As it was raining more than half the day, we even have a series of avant’garde umbrella shots amongst the ruins. And, oh yes, lest I forget, I am indeed publish a postcard series entitled: The Real Dogs of Pompeii. I have adorable shots of many of the strays, all over the site. Including this original mosaic – the first warning, ever, of its kind:
Cave Canem - Beware the dog
Tomorrow, you ask? Well, tomorrow, dear friends, I’m headed to the Amalfi Coast. That’s right, Positano and all your gorgeous neck breakingly high frighteningly thrilling colors and beach and Limoncello and fish and sun will be mine! For a day, at least. Then off to Napoli. Yup. Hanging with the gangsters tomorrow night. You know it. My sis has to, just has to see their museum. And I? I took the one less traveled by. And that led me to Pizza.
It’s 12:18 am, and I’m nearing being done with the packing and cleaning and bill paying…but not quite enough to feel comfortable. Why am I blogging, might you ask? Well, I’ve decided not to sleep, what with a cab coming in 2.5 hours, and I’ve got much on my mind.
First off, some articles really worth taking a look at. Important and interesting stuff that I’ve not noticed on the big radar:
Keith Olbermann: “President Obama, You Are Wrong” – A very powerful video, well written, moving rebuke on the president’s decision not to prosecute CIA interrogators for torture. Want a very compelling argument on learning from our mistakes lest we be doomed to repeat history? Watch this!
Modern life’s pressures are hastening human evolution – That’s right, we’re not done evolving. We’re actually speeding up. So much so, that in 10,000 years or less, the then-humans may not even be “Homo Sapien” any longer and could not interbreed with current-day humans. Read this article. Very cool. Very intriguing.
OK, now I really have to get back to doing things other than blogging, listening to Susan Boyle for the umpteenth time, and get on with the packing, bill paying, Italian train time table finding, airline ticket confirming business I really should be up to. I fly in less than 6 hours! But the thought of being away from a computer for three weeks…well, except for internet cafes, and the like, is kind of daunting…no, it’s also liberating. The 100-day marker is coming very soon for me. 100 days until my 30th birthday. The more I blog, the more I live, really, and spend time with good people, the more I understand how silly and pathetic this countdown is. Right now, it’s a great device. I would be lying if I said I was cool as a cucumber about this birthday, but I’m much better about it. I’m working on me, and that’s all that counts. I’m doing OK. More than OK, really, depending on the day and how I look at it, really. And enough with this pep talk! Tomorrow night, with any luck, I will be sleeping in some gorgeous little B&B on the Amalfi Coast. Aren’t I a lucky duck. So what if my savings will be blown to high hell, soon. How many people go to the places they want to go? Not enough, that’s for certain.
I first watched this video on Youtube early Wednesday morning GMT+2. I found out about it then, instead of perhaps a day later when it became a huge sensation in the US because of her name. Susan Boyle. While I suppose it’s common enough, I have a dear, dear friend by the same exact name, and when a Facebook friend posted that, “Susan Boyle is my hero!” or something to that extent, I perked up and immediately googled. Most everyone has undoubtedly seen this, and if you haven’t, you MUST. I am not ashamed to say I have seen it perhaps ten or more times, since. And I’ve got some thoughts. First, here it is. Youtube has blocked embedding on all videos of her, apparently.
There have been many articles written about why Susan Boyle’s story is so extraordinary. See some good examples of at HuffPo. Mainly:
1) Don’t judge a book by its cover
2) Ageism be damned!
She’s a dowdy country bumpkin, an old maid who stayed home to care for her dying mother. Such wasted talent. But she is The Everyman. Someone so ordinary and unassuming. And yet she has an exceptional gift. It’s at once an exhilarating experience and a tragedy for all of us to watch her. So uplifting is her voice, but she has been in obscurity all her life, and indeed would have died in obscurity, had she not sung on this television program. It’s heartbreaking that she represents all of us. All of us. Because who knows, we could all be so talented in our own ways. And despite living life “with no regrets,” I do believe we all have our “what ifs” to reckon with. It’s not just the ordinariness, not just the age, not just the talent that wraps up to become this Cinderella story.
Did anyone notice how poignant was the song choice? Can you imagine Susan backstage, knowing, believing in her heart that this was her one chance to perform on such a grand stage before such a large and esteemed audience? She clearly did not even fathom she could go on the final round. She trotted offstage without any thought after she sang. She took the judges compliments gracefully, but was still shocked with they gave her three yeses. So here is our Miss Boyle, preparing for the one and only performance that would count in her lifetime. And she chooses I Dreamed a Dream. Bloody hell. Have you taken a close look at the lyrics? Well, have a closer look:
I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high,
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
Then I was young and unafraid
When dreams were made and used,
And wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung,
No wine untasted.
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hopes apart
As they turn your dreams to shame.
And still I dream he’ll come to me
And we will live our lives together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms
We cannot weather…
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living
So different now from what it seems
Now life has killed
The dream I dreamed.
It’s her song. It’s a song about wasted dreams. About the difference between youth and jaded age. About how life can and does destroy you. And yet. And yet. The song has a tiny glimmer of hope. She still dreams, even though there are dreams that cannot be. I see Simon’s face as the camera switches to him, right when Susan sings the words, “I had a dream my life would be so different from this hell I’m living…” Are these not the very words with which so many of us are intimately acquainted?
What can we learn here? It would be so simple to say, “go out, work hard, achieve your goals, live your life!” Ya, sure, it’s sad that a talent contest is what brought Susan Boyle out of obscurity. But on the flip side is this: the pure joy of it. Had Susan never performed, she would still have possessed just as beautiful a voice and just as spunky a personality. She would be the same person. She was as incredible the day before the entire world knew who she was, as she is today. And she is just as ordinary. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could accept both of these things within ourselves. To push hard to achieve our dreams, and yet be at peace with everything we have, day in and day out. Does one push negate the other? Does ambition negate the tranquility of some sedentary ordinariness? I don’t think so. But I still think that most of us have not come to peace with the fact that we will not be world famous and beloved by millions for all our wonderful quirks and talents and abilities. Still. Still. Still. Just like in the song, we dream dreams that cannot be. We still hope, even when we’re closer to grave than cradle. Can we reject the dream of universal love and admiration, settle for the love and admiration around us, and still work to reach the stars? I hope so. Life would be a little less disappointing. Yet it is what we make of it. It always is. Take it as you’d like.
I leave for Italy in about 16 hours. I’ll try to blog more before. Lord knows I feel like purging and writing and explaining and theorizing and philosophizing and all the wonderful self-centered things a blog allows (talk about dreams of universal attention and love and respect and bla bla bla…). Have a wonderful Friday, and I great weekend!
So…I haven’t written for a while, and it wasn’t for lack of material. It was because I without computer for too long, and I had too much material, and now so many f-ing errands…you get the picture.
An AUM Meditation Session
I went to an Ashram, the “Desert Ashram” an hour north of Eilat (in the middle of nowhere and in view of Jordan), an Osho Ashram – participated in many, many, many bizarre meditations, some of which I enjoyed, some of which terrified me, and some of which we just plain funny. Lots of screaming, breathing, vibrating, etc. And I went to a lecture entitled, “Secrets of the Female Orgasm.” I was really hoping to learn something. Instead, I have a hysterical story racked up for a future post. Go figure. I slept in a tent for 5 days. I slept when I wanted. Ate veggie food. Read a great sci fi book I brought with me (Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – read it, if you haven’t). And basically, had an OK, pretty relaxing time with a bunch of bourgeois pseudo-hippies on an alternative spring break.
Venice
I’m going off to Italy in a day and a half. Yup. Italy. With my family. We’re converging from many places all over the world. My two parents from Chicago, my doctor sister from NYC, and my sort of student sister who lives near me but went to Italy 2 weeks early to make a mega-vacation out of it. The ‘rents bought a cruise for us all last year before the economy went crunch. So, we’re going. It’s paid for. I’m going a week early in order to hike around Pompeii, a dream since I learned about in 3rd grade, eat the world’s best pizza in Naples, experience the majesty of the Amalfi coast, meet up with both sisters for three days of Roman extravagance, and then all three of us are meeting the parental units up in Venice. For the cruise. The worst idea for a vacation, I think, as I have terrible motion sickness and have been stockpiling Dramamine (and its Israeli equivalent) since I learned of this idea (thank you Mother). And from there, Croatia (for 8 hours), a bunch of Greek islands (for 8 hours a pop), and one Turkish island (again, 8 hours). It’s bad. I mean, it’s barely a taster. It’s not even one night. It’s a stroll, a meal, a souvenir shop, and hey, it’s time to get back on the bus…except it’s a giant boat. Nothing says Stupid American Tourist like a giant white cruise ship. Ugh. And I’ll be one of them. There are formal nights, too. I have to go to black tie events…I’m a backpacker for f’s sake! Oh well. Can’t say no to a free vacation, right? When we get back to Venice, Mom and I zip off to the other coast and do 4 days in Cinque Terra (dream come true for me, again, lots of hiking, quaint vineyards, artisanal cheeses, views, hiking, food, wine, ham, cheese, wine, and did I mention food…and hiking?). We end the trip with 1.5 days in Milano before Mom joins me on a flight to Israel…where she’ll be extending her visit for 2 months!!!!! Which is why, dear friends, readers, countrymen…I got myself a ticket home – Stateside – that be right! My first trip home to the States in well over a year and a half! Yeehaw! And it means I avoid dear Mother for one out of her two months invading my space in Tel Aviv.
I promised poetry, though, right? Well, if anyone cares for bad poetry-exercise-prompted written at an Osho ashram, there’s some below. Knowing me though, it’s kind of funny and dirty and crude and cynical. Everyone was writing about the sky, the sand, the emotions, the sounds of the birds…bla, bla, bla. WordPress has taken out all my stanzas. I don’t know why. So I can’t tell you where one should begin and one should end. Oh well. I tried. Like 5 times. Go figure, wordpress. Really. Well, here we go. Here’s my take on the Ashram, in verse, no less:
Prompt 1: write a poem of no more than 6 lines which has the title “Desert” or “Kiss”
Desert
There are no more to conquer
No sands too dry
No heat too harsh
No thirst too great
No.
There are no more deserts to conquer
Only from which to escape
(notice me cheating…always…there are 7 lines in that one…cheeky, cheeky…)
Prompt 2: Write a poem on the theme, “The Zorba the Buddha Festival” (the name of the festival I was at, if you can believe it or not)
(translated from the Hebrew…she made me…I don’t like to write in Hebrew…I’m bad at it)
Why do they say Pestival with a “P”?
And not Festival with an “F”?
Why do they wear such stupid clothing like these?
Do they think they’re in India?
Why do they search for answers here?
Do they think the hippies know the secret of life?
The bourgeoisie is coming to the desert
Caravans, caravans, caravans
Toyota, Hyundai, Daihatsu
iPod, Arak, North Face, Crocs
Searching for themselves.
There are no answers. There are answers.
They go home. Sand in the car. Dust in the hair.
Hope remains. Life goes on until the next pestival.
(it sounded better in Hebrew. The nuances were lost. Can you tell? Too bad I can’t type in Hebrew…not that anyone could read it..)
Prompt 3: Write a poem based on specific physical observations.
Thick, crusty, yellow and warped
The monstrous ugly duckling
Amongst his fair brothers
Protruding above the others in their line
This was not a congenital condition, oh no
No genetic abnormality disturbed his birth
He grew, identical, from toe to tip
Like all his adorable kin
But this little piggy went to market
And that little piggy went home
And while this little piggy ate roast beef
Our little piggy got a mushroom pie
The shameful secret that cannot be hidden here
Under woolen warmth or stiletto style
And thus, and thus, this is the story of the seemingly normal
Seemingly sweet, kind, desert dusted
Feet of my rebirthing neighbor
(Do you guys have any idea how many people suffer from toenail fungus? It’s nasty. I mean gross. I’ve got one borderline nail that I’ve been treating with lacquer-medicine for months now because there is no way I’m turning into Franken-toes. This person grossed me out to the extreme. Cmon folks, take care of your feet. I don’t have the best ones, I know it, but I try. I try.)
Finally,
Prompt 4: write a poem of no more than 5 lines that contains the words “sex” and “surfboard” and contains a variation on the word “pain”
(Joy of joys…)
Sex with him was to be
Better than chocolate!
Like the best rollercoaster,
A magical surfboard ride!
Hell, he was just another painful poke
And why have a I regaled you with horribly bad ashram poetry?
1) because I can
2) because the Israelis thought I was a bloody brilliant modern day Emily Dickinson (ha!)
3) to prove that I did not, nor do I ever intend to DRINK THE KOOLAID! Booyah!
4) because I’m procrastinating right now on a massive to-do list…
‘Scuse the allusion to rude language. My feet really do hurt. Badly. It’s my own stupidity. I’ve been wearing boots with a relatively high heel to my wine tastings this week. Why? Because heels make me feel more important – elegant – feminine – powerful – and some other things I could throw in there. In heels, especially high heeled boots (and we’re not talking three + inch monstrosities here…more like anything over 1.5 inches, maybe two-ish or a bit more), I feel like I can face the world, and in a good mood, I could even take it over. I mash my heels into the floor…I’m told I’m a stomper. I like to hear my steps when I walk. And basically, when you’re on your feet for several hours on end…these are pretty much the worst shoes to be in. I dream of sneakers. But in reality, I wouldn’t ever wear them when I’m leading a wine tasting. I dress nicely, put my hair up, wear some makeup, some jewelry. Why? Because selling is a show. And wine is a luxurious product. And I need to be taken seriously. And a woman in heels who is well put together (we’re not talking prostitute-ish), will be taken more seriously than one wearing flats. Period. At least that’s my experience. And it makes me feel differently about how I look, hence affecting my behavior in a positive way. The result: my feet hurt like a mother f…..
Anyway, Passover is around the corner, very very very much so. So, if you’re Jewish and stocking up on wine, remember me, my aching feet, and buy some wine from the Golan Heights Winery or the Galil Mountain Winery. Top of the Israeli market. Big award winners. I recommend the Yarden Cabernet Sauvingnon 2005, the Yarden Katzrin Chardonnay 2005 (if you can find it…it’s a absolute dream), and the Yarden Gewurztraminer 2008 (de-vine). Here’s a big Israeli wine blog, with a review of several of these, by the big Israeli wine critic, Daniel Rogov.
And those are my thoughts for the evening. Did my Passover food shopping this morning. Saw my doctor for another umpteen prescriptions, ranging from yet another brave attempt at conquering a yeast infection, to a mood stabilizer, to motion sickness medicines for the cruise I’m going on in Italy in a couple weeks (“thanks Mom and Dad,” or perhaps “good grief Mom and Dad,” should these Israeli meds not work and I end up vomiting for a week while at sea…).
Good night and good luck to you all. And God help me through this week.
That’s not exactly true. I tend to be so gullible, Webster’s did start printing my picture about fifteen years ago next to the word. Right.
But I am so so so ridiculously thrilled at all the April Fools pranks going around the mass media circuit. I’m going to post some funny videos and links. Just because. It’s so nice to laugh, don’t you think? We don’t do it often enough, at least I don’t. And having taken a “Laughing Yoga” class in recent memory, I’m told it’s supposed to be really healthy. Even if you don’t mean it. Laughter, even the fake kind, is truly the best medicine.
Enjoy!
BBC’s the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest 1957:
Microsoft unveiled a new yodeling game, Alpine Legend, that lets you “jam with alpine legends like Franz “The Manz” Lang and Johann Hornbostel.” Add-ons include a tri-horne and a goat:
The song that’s with me for the night. Relish the master poet:
I’m in Haifa. It’s a stormy night. I’m with my lovely artist friend D, and we shared a dinner, tired as we both were, and then went to a nude modeling session to draw. I feel safe here in her studio apartment, late as it is, with our makeshift mosquito netting hung quickly as an attempt to ward off these horrific offenders.
I am dying to blog about my first wine gig last Friday, but I can’t seem to concentrate. Too tired. Too wired. Too much chemical craziness inside. I’ve been having meds issues. Yup. The Lexapro (or Cipralex, as we call it here in Israel) hasn’t felt like it’s been doing much for the past couple months. It was a pretty rotten February. That or I really do suffer from seasonal depression, as last February was the pits as well. But Israel’s not cold, really. Or grey at all. Anyway, my psychiatrist suggested we double my dose from 10 to 20 (I think it’s mg) per day. Basically, I was taking one pill per day, and we were going up to two. Sure, great, fine. No, not fine. Day one involved my sleeping for the whole day, and dragging myself off the couch only because I had an appointment I couldn’t not cancel, and I spent the entire meeting high off my ass like I had smoked a couple of joints on my own. Ya, that’s progress. I decided, no way, I’m going down by half a pill. Better, but I’ve been sleepy all week. Two to three hour naps at weird hours every day. And I feel groggy all the time. All the time. Like in a kind of emotion-less, slow, silent, creepy kind of high-numbness.
And now, all I want is to get off the drugs completely. Easier said than done. If I do it, I’m going to endure some pretty bad withdrawal. Worse than I’ve ever experienced before. Worse than cigarettes, I imagine. I had a sneak preview today because I was out of pills and had to run to the pharmacy to refill. Not something anyone should do with Lexapro. I’m supposed to take it around the same time every day. Well, a four-hour delay gave me a physical preview of the jonez-ing I will endure soon, or when, I go off this stuff. Even a few hours afterward, the balance must not have been struck, as I would have killed for a shot of whisky or a xanax or a cigarette or all three at once. Yup. Why? So, great, I’ve got a slight bipolar problem. I’ve got depression issues. One little pill can help immediately. But temporarily. And at the end of the day, a drug is a drug is a drug. Perhaps if I go all-natural, get acupuncture, take homeopathic remedies, eat all organic, spend lots of time doing talk therapy, draw pictures, be positive, positive, positive, and enjoy a glass of wine or scotch every once in a while to dilute life’s shit every once in a while, it would be a decent replacement for psychiatric drugs. Because I hate to think what this is doing to my liver, to boot. I might as well enjoy my liquor, as right now, it’s not safe for me to indulge very much at all. Imagine that I went to a whiskey tasting, had eight lovely glasses before me, and took a miniscule sip of each one, leaving them virtually untouched. Like, a hundred bucks work of booze down the drain instead of down my hatch. Pisses me off.
Drugs are not the answer. I’m not psychotic, and my bipolar diagnosis isn’t all that bad. It’s a blip. A minor thing. I hope. So, what’s the answer? Who the hell knows. Drugs are a temporary shelter. The roof wears thin pretty damned fast these days. And it’s astormin’. Maybe I should just learn to enjoy the rain.
A facebook friend posted links to other segments of ABC’s most recent 20/20 program from a couple days ago, all about the impact of the economic crisis on everyday people. And on kids. Really decent stuff. Nothing too “investigative,” however, as I’ve not been living in the USA for almost 1.5 years, it showed me how out of touch I was. Living in Israel, I’m cushioned from the economic crisis. I think this is because of a combination of things -
A socialist governmental system – sure people fall through the cracks, but not many – people don’t starve here, as far as I know. People who don’t work get money from the government.
Israel distanced itself from the mortgage crisis. Our banks are safe. Sure, more people than average are losing jobs as a recourse of the international “ripple effect,” but it’s not like our financial foundations have been cracked. At all.
Personally speaking, I’m young, single, have some savings, have a kind family, and life is pretty much normal, though I do worry about where the money is going to come from in the long term.
And finally, this is Israel. We have endured terrorism, wars, and a large percentage of the population are holocaust survivors and/or their offspring. Tough economic times we can weather. Piece of cake. Because as bitchy and rude and crude as Israelis are, we take care of each other. Nobody I know has lost a home, or is in danger of losing a home, and if they were, I would be the first to take them in, do everything to find them a job, and fix the thing as soon as possible. Many people I know have lost their jobs. But nobody is panicking.
So, all in all, I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten in the States. But watching that video kind of made me want to pack my bags, move to Detroit, buy a $100 house near these nice people, and start a new life, building it quite literally, with my hands. Because these people are correct. When you have nothing to lose, you have everything to gain. It’s not a big gamble. It’s a safe one, albeit pretty unattractive to most people.
And I NEED a home. One I can afford. I don’t have much to my name. Maybe S10,000. Probably less by now. But I have no debt. None. I’m scared of moving out to the “boonies” or to the “country.” I am single. I have a tough enough time as it is forcing myself to be social. If I isolate myself like this, or move to another environment farther from my friends, what kind of favor would I be doing myself? Then again, doing everything possible to get out of this soul sucking apartment I’m living in now, full of the bagage of the dead and gone and departed, full of other people’s dust and clutter, is essential. I promised myself a home by my birthday. I’d better get moving. My ideas? Haifa – it’s still a city and I know some people there, although it’s not a great lively city and it’s only one good friend I actually have there. Rural kibbutz – cheap rent, horses, agriculture, maybe a chance to learn a thing or two about winemaking, from the ground up. Ideally, I’d like to buy. But I don’t have a steady income, and probably not enough for a large downpayment. I’d need the Israeli equivalent of that $100 house. But perhaps it exists. Then again, I’d have to go to Israel’s equivalent of Detroit…or Kansas…to do it.
I had to. I just had to. It’s so ridiculous. And at the same time, that cat looks absolutely fabulous. Better hair than mine. Surfing the Kitty Wigs! website, I learned that these wigs have been featured in numerous magazines and television programs, and of course, all over the web. But lord knows, I would not spend $50 plus shipping on this for my cats. They would kill me, and I’d be out $50. I can’t believe this strange and highly successful business!!!? Who knew there would be a demand???
Two nights ago I went to a modest whiskey tasting at a very nice wine and liquor store in Tel Aviv. The selection wasn’t much to write home about. But it was super-friendly and turned out to be a great evening. And the guy leading the tasting, the brand manager at Akkerman (the largest importer of spirits, beer, and wine to Israel), was really sweet, told great stories, and I learned some new things. There were only about ten of us sitting around a table (including the shop owner -one of the most knowledgeable wine-and-spirit men I’ve met in Israel), all of us nibbling on a nice charcuterie and crudite spread throughout, and it was, just, really nice. Which for a melancholic like me, is something to be happy about. So, here’s a brief summary, and I’ll try to be as pictorial as possible…everyone likes pictures best, right? Well, in the absence of the whiskeys themselves, you bet.
Here we go! And for those of you with no patience, there are a couple of hilarious videos at the end! And let’s get on with the show!
Random facts: Whiskey is not a geographical term, as Scotch Whisky (from Scotland only) and Bourbon (from Kentucky only) actually are. Japan is apparently making incredible whiskeys these days, perhaps better than some of the Scotch. There’s a story that goes something like this – a Scotsman married a Japanese person way before the war and brought this tradition with him…and because of the direction of the alliances, this guy had to leave, but left a whiskey-making sensibility behind there. And I’ve never tasted a Japanese whiskey. And I really should. Gotta do some research about that. They have the correct climate conditions and some excellent water, so it makes sense.
When I see this, all I can think is, "For relaxing times, make it Suntory time."
Fun Facts continued!
Jack Daniels has overtaken Scotch – it’s the single largest lable being bought in the world today. Of course, more Scotch is being sold, but it’s the single biggest. In the Scotch world, there are four big takers making up the majority of the pie – J&B, Ballantines, Johnnie Walker, and Dewar’s. All blends. And there’s a big historical reason for that. Which I just learned about. Which I’ll get to later.
Master blenders (which every distillery has) only use their noses to create the blends. They smell the barrels. And I’m told they’re very “simple” and strange people, apprenticing for decades, learning what the true smell and taste of that particular whisky is meant to be, and then taking over for the recently deceased master blender.
Whiskey in a barrel evaporates at a rate of 2% per year. Think about how much whiskey has gone up into the “sky” from a 25 year old barrel! In Scotland they call this “the angels’ share.” Sweet.
There are two types of Scotches, malt and grain. Malt whisky is distilled in a single pot in a relatively simple process. Grain whisky is distilled in a column with a process called fractional distillation – it’s a more complicated, but far cheaper process – the result being far more tasteless scotch.
Pot Still, for single malt
Column or Coffey Still
So the big difference between single malt Scotch and Blended Scotch Whiskies? Single malt is just that. One kind of Scotch, made in a pot still, from one single distillery (it can come from different barrels, though – they too use master blenders, because every barrel is different, and they need to try to stay consistent somehow). My previous post has a short video on how they make single malt at Laphroaig. Blends are a mix of grain whisky (the cheap, tasteless, fractional distilled kind) and many different malt whiskies. Yup, that’s right. Cheap, tasteless whisky, flavored by up to 50 different single malts (that have very unique flavors of their own).
And why are blends so popular? Because they are much much much cheaper and easier to produce. It’s like taking a blank cheap canvas, and using tiny tiny dabs of expensive paint to give it flavor.
Until recently, I thought blends were a waste of time. Generally, the cheap ones kind of are. For me, anyway. I’d rather have the real thing. A specific strong unique flavor. But last month when I got to taste the whole Johnnie Walker line, I learned better. The top-of-the-line blends use really expensive and really old whiskies, some of which don’t even exist today. AND because the blends are doing so “well,” they are forwarding the whisky industry as a whole. It’s a great time for Scotch, as far as I know.
More facts? God, who is going to read this?!
OK-
Onto America. Scotch and Irish immigrants in the new world wanted to make their favorite brews. But, again, these are still colonial times with the big bad taxing English calling the shots. So, they push on into the frontier. Appalachia. Tennessee. Kentucky. The French. Get along great with them, side with them against the English, treat these guys a lot better, go ahead and make your whiskies, boys. For a really long and succinct history on the name “bourbon,” go to this website.
American whiskeys are pretty different than Scotch or Irish. Why? Corn. The main grain aux etats-uni, of course! American whiskey rules are: 1) 51% corn AND 2) use of new wood barrels ONLY. See, in Europe, they use old barrels. Great flavor from what was in there before. But in the US of A, new barrels. Sweet liquor from the corn, aggressive woodsy taste in the throat going down.
UNTIL
Jack Daniel’s. Crazy guy. Born 1850. Left home at 6 years old. Had his own distillery at 13 years old. Moved it to its current home in Lynchburg, Tennessee at age 16. Lynchburg’s got great water from underground springs. To this day almost all the 350 residents are employees. And it’s a DRY TOWN. Not kidding. During prohibition, the heir to JD’s ran for office in order to protect the business, and got a special arrangement — they could make the whisky…they just couldn’t drink it. To this day, you can’t drink it where you make it. There’s an “11 miles, one step, and a closed door,” rule.
But back to Jack. His whiskey was smooth. Why? Maple charcoal filtering. Took the bite out of the new wood taste from the barrel, AND added taste from the maple.
Sometime after his death at age 61, they created “Gentleman Jack,” an upscale version of the original. The difference? It’s charcoal filtered twice. Before and after. And they use “gentler” barrels. So smooth. It’s a nice drink. I’m not fond of American, but this one, I do drink on occasion.
Last but not least, Canadian. I’m embarrassed to admit that this was the first time I tasted Canadian. And I really liked it. To this day, they’re not as big in the whiskey world. But they’re there. Why? Prohibition. When America couldn’t make alcohol, they got tequila from Mexico and Scotch from Canada. I tasted Canadian Club, and it was unbelievably sweet. You know why? They make it from rye! That’s right. Rye is another drink, albeit related, but in Canada, it’s their grain of choice for whiskey. And believe me, it was gentle, sweet, and totally full of vanilla. I also learned that one of the whiskies I have drunk quite a bit of in the past, Chivas, was originally Canadian. Cool beans.
So what all did I taste at the tasting? Funny you should ask.
Scotch: Laphroaig (single malt, very peaty and smoky and very much what I like to drink. It’s from the islands and you taste the sea in every drop); Dewar’s White Label and Dewar’s 12 year old (blends, sweet, very different from each other. I was surprised by how pleasant the “cheaper” White Label was); Glengoyne (single malt, from the highlands, so traditionally would have less peat — however, this time, no peat. It’s the only distillery in Scotland that does not use any at all. A very bizarre flavor. Not what you’d expect. I encourage Scotch drinkers to try this one, if you haven’t).
American: Jack Daniel’s and Gentleman Jack. Already described above.
Canadian: Canadian Club. Ditto.
That’s it. Seven. But well worth the two-hour lecture. Thanks for reading my spiel here, if you’ve kept up. Now, go have a glass of whiskey!
Bill Murray doing Suntory:
Sean Connery (!!!) doing Suntory:
Oh boy, the full Connery:
And the best for last, I present you, Keanu Reeves:
Suntory time feels so bad, it’s good.
Suntory time, baby. Thank you Ms Coppola. Thank you Mr Murray.
Happy St Paddy’s Day! The most adorable expression I’ve seen today:
Thank you Jim Henson.
A few more videos to lift our spirits:
I went to a wonderful little whiskey tasting last night, and I’ve got a FULL report coming. But I thought I’d tempt your tongues and noses with that one. The Laphroaig was lovely, thank you.
And finally, thanks to my friend the genius computer engineer (who btw invited me to last night’s tasting), this really special short film. It’s a bit long (12 minutes), but well worth the watch:
Having been to what I am starting to believe more and more is my pill-pushing quack of a psychiatrist, as well as my cool barely-older-than-me psychologist in the same day, and having read a Judy Blume book cover to cover in between, here’s a fun video to brighten all our days:
I’m a bit woozy, as I took a xanax an hour ago or so. Not the best day. Well, an eye opener. My writing workshop consensus was that my book, although ridiculously promising at the beginning, needs a lot of work in the middle and end. I mean, when they gave me the critique a while ago on the first third, it was through the roof. The kind of stuff that a publisher would have a wet dream over. And now I realize what a grandiose mountain it is I am really standing before.
I felt really alone today. Really wanted to cry and be comforted by a mother. My mother isn’t the type. So not the type, it’s laughable. All my life I never realized that I approached her with so much hope that she’d finally just embrace me without opening her mouth. With pure acceptance. Without curious, suggestive, self-centered, egotistical, judgemental jabs. And I spoke with my father today for the first time in what must be over a month or maybe even more. I think it’s like more like two. And the weird thing is, I don’t have the strain with him as much as with my mom. He just doesn’t call and is so busy and in so many countries, I never know when to call and where I might find him. It was nice to hear his voice. But it made me so sad. I wanted to cry, to tell him that it is quite possible I’m terribly depressed and that I’m not sure my meds are working and that I feel that my life is insignificant sometimes and that I don’t know what the solutions are. But I couldn’t say anything. We just talked about my travel plans for the spring, and he helped me with his industry-insider knowledge in booking some flights. And part of me was so angry. So angry at him that I couldn’t say these things. So low. And all we did was “talk business” as usual. I’m pretty sure I sounded strained. You know, when someone asks how you are, you always say you’re fine. Even though you might be the farthest thing from it. Why open Pandora’s box? Why tell a parent who can’t do anything to help you and usually gives you advice you don’t care to hear because it’s conservative and insensitive, that you’re lost and scared and miserable? It would only hurt them. But then who do I turn to?
I took a xanax, not something I do often, maybe 2-3 times a year…but it’s gotten closer to 4-5…not a dangerous amount. Because I was sensing myself start to spin. I called a friend on the phone and she didn’t answer. I would have called one or two others, but it’s the Sabbath here, and they’re religious and won’t have their phones on or won’t answer.
My date went well. He was exceptionally smart. We have a lot in common. But I sensed I wasn’t quite all there. We are going to meet again. But I need to have a heart to heart with myself, if such a thing exists. My gynecological issues these past couple months have been scary and uncomfortable. I can’t pretend that the idea of sex isn’t still off-putting. It is. I want to get to know people. Just people. Sometimes I think I’d give almost anything up to have unbelievable sex just once in my life. Maybe even pleasant good sex. Other times, I know in my gut that I’d be more than OK if I’d never have sex again in my entire life. Funny. It’s a take it or leave it. Sometimes I feel (or rather I know) that I’m really missing out. Other times, I really know it’s not worth it. Sex has brought me nothing but worry and discomfort and jeopardized my health. I don’t know what it feels like to burn with desire. Maybe I’m not capable of it. But I know I need a partner. I need to keep dating. I want to built positive relationships, have strong friendships, weave a varied and colorful and supportive basket of people around me. But the intimacy thing. Sometimes I wonder about hypnosis. I’d really like to dig to the root of my problems. I was never physically abused as far as I know. But after all my years of dating, of sexual dabbling, and therapy on top of it, to still be so uncomfortable, so panic striken, seems fishy to me. Regular yeast and urine infections, along with the worry of STD’s and pregnancy, for crappy sex that feels a bit uncomfortable at best just isn’t worth it. Keep the dirty knobs away. For the moment, anyway.
Lots of random things shooting around my head…and I’m going with stream of consciousness, here.
Discovered Bill Hicks, an exceptional comedian who died of cancer at the age of 33 in 1994. I discovered him surfing, as you do (well, not “as you do,” really: the smart women I wine with on Wednesday nights want to set me up with a friend of theirs, and they gave me his name to look up on facebook, and he had posted the monologue David Letterman omitted from broadcast on October 1, 1993, just a few months before Hicks died). He’s great. The Letterman clip was good. But I liked this one better:
Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin born on the same day, February 12, 1809. Someone important and inspirational made that connection recently, and I can’t remember where I read or heard it. In the grand scheme of things, important people are occasionally going to be born on the same day. But perhaps not people this important. I wonder what on God’s green earth was happening with the stars and the fates on that wintry day in 1809.
My table is slanted. I don’t understand, as it’s not wobbly. BTW, I’m at one of my fave cafe’s, Dizi, featured in a previous post or two.
I’m determined to make writing fun again. I’ve got to work on this book, it’s one of my main three goals this week. I’m going clip photos of supermodels from the early 90’s heyday of supermodels. I’m going to find fun pre-teen stationery to write fake letters on. I’m going to read the criticism that’s been generously given to me. I’m going to take it to heart, soak in the spirit of the changes I need to make, and then start slowly. I will not get offended, dispirited, jaded, etc.
The amazing soundtrack to Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? is playing. Keep on the sunny side of life, indeed.
I am still moving too slowly. Though my clothes are still folded, my bed made, and the dishes are still washed. And I finally got my psychiatrist on the phone and booked an appointment (another of the top 3 things to do this week). And I called into my new wine job, and they gave me my first round of holiday shifts, so exciting to be leading wine tastings (!!!), which will also give me a chance to make over a thousand shekels before leaving for Italy. Doesn’t sound like I’ve been moving slowly. But I have. If you take into account that I slept until almost 10 am, wasn’t even slightly productive until after 12 pm, didn’t shower until 2 pm, and didn’t leave the house until 3 pm. And I watched an episode of Star Trek Voyager in there. Even Bill Hicks believes in space exploration.
My Purim night was OK. Just OK. It was amazing to witness the debauchery in Tel Aviv. But not drinking made participating really hard. The “high tech” mega-company party I went to was kind of fun, however far too crowded. There was free drink (shucks, no alcohol for me…poo!), free food, lots of cool entertainment. And celebrity performers, too. It was OK, but I think atmosphere is very important, and stick too many people in too small a space that isn’t well organized, and I can’t find ways to have fun. My other friend’s party was slightly better, and I knew at least half the people. BUT everyone was pretty well sloshed by the time I got there. Which was kind of hilarious. But also kind of boring. I kind of played mommy at the end. We all left to go to the Florentine block party, THE place to be on Purim. They shut down all the streets in this semi-dump semi-gentrified bohemian neighborhood. And I’ve never seen so many people out on the streets before in my life. Never. And it was 3 am. Tons of music, alcohol, craziness. This being Israel, I was nervous being around there. I didn’t think there was enough police protection for an event this huge, especially with everyone in costume (plenty of ways to hide stuff and people), drunk, young-ish, and affluent (this is Tel Aviv here). I left my drunk friends and booked it home with another sober friend who’d be spending the night on my couch (not as easy as it sounds, we had to wade out way through acres of these people and get out of the neighborhood before we could find a cab that was also not stuck in gridlock traffic). Next year, I’ll hopefully be able to drink. And no block parties for me. Give me a nice private party any ole day, and I’m a happy camper.
And now I really have to work. Yes, work! Get the file out! Find those supermodels! Read those notes! Go! Go! Go!
I’m pretty uncomfortable. My depression this past month may have a more physical explanation than I thought. I was assuming my “feminine” issues were psychosomatic. It’s in my nature. But today, I got confirmation that it wasn’t all in my head. It seems I have a urinary infection AND a yeast infection. And who knows how long I’ve had them. Could be up to a month and a half at this point. Though I’m doubting the urinary one could have been around that long. I mean, that could actually kill you (don’t think I’ve not been panicking about it all day as I ponder my aching abdomen). More like one caused the other caused the other and was exacerbated by stress and my head and goodness knows what. Bottom line. I’ve been really uncomfortable. Really really uncomfortable. I promise never to have sex again not that I even want to the concept disgusts me so much, and by the way please tear out my vagina, you’d be doing me a huge favor, kind of uncomfortable. Ya, I’m just that unlucky. Not only has sex never really done a damned thing for me, now I’ve got these very real, very painful issues to deal with. And here’s the real doozy – the 4 horse pills per day for ten days antibiotics that I’m on will likely give me another yeast infection (ya, I got one now to begin with, and the good doc gave me meds for that, too). It’s a cycle, cure one, get the other – cure that, get the other. I’m destined to itch and burn for eternity. Sounds like hell, no? And what sin have I committed? Goodness gracious. And here I sit, chugging water, cranberry juice, parsley water (not as disgusting as I expected), taking something like 7 different pills per day at different times, and now I’ve got to deal with messy gelatinous inserts for the yeast issue. Just my luck.
The only productive note – I’ve been keeping the kitchen clean-ish, the dishes washed within a day, and I paid someone else to do my laundy – worth every damned overpriced penny. I can be a grownup. Even though my private parts may never work properly.
I finished reading the book Sybil, a famous account of perhaps the most “prolific” multiple personality. The book was pretty engrossing. It was dry at times, but at the end, I’m glad I read it. Then, I googled it. Why oh why did I do it? Because I’m curious. Right? When you learn about something, you want to learn more. I was hoping to find some video footage of multiple personality disorder, maybe some other articles, etc. What I found? That many people believe that the book is an exaggeration at best, or a hoax at worst, and that the “Sybil” character never had a dissociative personality, but was a hysteric, and that a book deal couldn’t be procured on a hysteric. Further digging turned up an argument against the existence of the disorder as a disorder, and merely a sort of symptom of abuse. Anyway. I hate that I now feel a bit crushed. A bit manipulated. The book is supposed to be nonfiction. There were two films made. It could be true. But still.
And I just saw the film I “Heart” Huckabees. Rented it as one of my two weekend movies. Very bizarre. Right up my alley. But I’m not sure it was a succesful film. Pretty abstract. Very “indie.” It’s all kind of about existential dilemmas. A young guy who has encountered several coincidences hires “existential detectives” to follow him and get to the root of the answer. I think I’ll watch it again. Pretty damned funny. But more than a bit puzzling, too.
And now I’m late. Yes, late! I’m going to a bar opening. Yes, I’m theoretically going out. Yes, going out. And I’m still in a bathrobe. Yup. Goodness gracious me.
Such the fraidy cat that I am, I just spent half an hour rehearsing a phone call that lasted no more than five minutes. But what a step! And what a series of events! For starters, I went out last night with an extremely hip group of women. One gifted writer, one theatrical designer and TV stylist, one genius computer engineer, and me. The four of us, after a hilarious mishap which found us at an Israeli cross between a pub and sports bar when we had been expecting a suave wine bar with exquisite Italian food, went across town where I found us a real quality wine bar, one of only two that I know. This one was closer (corner of Nachalat Binyamin and Montifiore), very new, and owned by a friend of a friend, so I was more than glad to give them our business. It was a wonderful decision. We shared a bottle of Rioja, which turned out to be very complex, spicy, and really hit the “we want to be in a great and elegant spot” kind of mood. We also shared a cheese plate, a fundamentally fantastic decision, again, as it had a Chevre, a goat’s Camembert, a gorgeous Gorgonzola, and a hard cow’s cheese presented in dainty slivers whose name I can’t remember now. This wonderful place even gave us four homemade chocolate truffles with our bill. Nice. In a country where customer service is a non-existent joke, we were quite happy, indeed.
My depression / melancholy / ennui patch slowly subsiding this week, and still very much on a high of wanting to “get into” the wine/spirits business here in Israel, I chatted with the ladies about some realistic short-term goals I had in mind. Amongst them is to perhaps get a job at a wine shop, or lead wine tastings, or doing some part-time marketing work for a boutique winery, or some such activity which would allow me to get out of the house some, interact with interesting people, and taste and learn lots about Israeli wines. As well as earn a buck, I should say, as I’m unemployed or self-employed, or delusionally employed, or goodness knows what.
As I was saying this, the wine bar staff was just pouring our wine and presenting our cheeses, and my friends stopped me…as it seemed the two waitresses were trying to get my attention. These two charming girls told me that they often do wine tastings and that their manager at this company was looking for more workers, especially with the holiday season approaching (holiday season in Israel comes twice a year, essentially — we have the autumn holidays, the big scary “high holy days” — and then we have the spring holidays which start with Purim in March, continue to Passover in April, and then continue to a bunch of national holidays leading up to Independence Day, which is usually in early May). They had me take down their contact’s number, said to pass along their names, and that was that. It also turned out that one of the women I was with, the designer, has a brother who is a wine maker, a true blue degree-carrying expert in setting up vineyards and making the actual wines who has been doing it for a decade or more here in Israel. Good friends of her brother’s actually started one of my favorite boutique wineries here in Israel, Flam (it’s a gorgeous website, too). And after I do some good research about what my “wine goals” realistically are for the long run, and do some good research on wine making, wine in Israel, etc, she’ll find a way for me to meet her brother. Yay!
It was a fortuitous evening to say the least. Stars coming together to help me. But, I have to act, too. This could be it, the way for me to make money without hating myself. It also really helps that I love this field, and I might be persuaded to even dream so big as to want to make a big contribution. Why not? But I have to act. And act I did. I made that phone call, they are looking for new people to lead wine tastings and market the wines, and there will be an introductory meeting early next week! Yes! It’s a step. And it may lead to nice part-time work. And it’s a great company, from what I’m told. At least the wines are good. Check the Golan Heights Winery out.
But onto the daily drag. I have a mountain of laundry so scary, I’m not sure what to do about it. Wash it would be the logical thing, but I don’t have a dryer, and it would take me more than a week to wash, then hang, wait for the load to dry before doing another one, as the apartment is too small to even hang more laundry than that. I have to read two manuscripts this week for my writing seminar, and I have to write, and write a lot, because I’ve barely been doing a thing. So, it’s gotta be about writing and cleaning and reading this weekend and it has to happen.
Luckily I’ve got some great new tunes to make it all go easier. I’ve heard some of Mika’s songs over the past many months, but I didn’t connect the dots. I must have been the last one to hear of him. I honestly thought the songs might be from Robby Williams (because to me, they have very similar voices). But in Ireland, my friend had the album Life in Cartoon Motion in her car, and I got to listen to the whole thing. Impressive, full of energy and light. Fun, hip, bouncy, quirky, and intelligent. I highly recommend it to anyone out there who needs a boost. And to anyone else. It’s just too damn fun to miss out on.
I’m amazed at how people come across blogs. Personally, if I find one I like, I browse through that blog’s blogroll. You just surf. The wonderful thing about having your own blog is the statistics you get to monitor. Sure, if I had the patience to figure it out, I could sign up for all sorts of free and paid analytics packages. But I don’t care that much, and the stats offered on WordPress suit me fine. It’s funny. Sometimes I get traffic for the silliest things. Months ago I mentioned the TV shows “Coupling” and “Absolutely Fabulous,” each with a photo, and I think once with a link for some episodes you can stream online. I now have days and days when I get dozens of people find me by searching for these TV shows. I mean, for pete’s sake, how high do I rank for a couple of mentions to send me so many damn views? Traffic is nice, don’t get me wrong. It’s just curious.
So, ya never know when an odd mention of Guns ‘N’ Roses or Doris Day or Ross Perot or Jacques Cousteau will score you some views and potential subscribers. Not that I care. But it’s weird. Any Internet statisticians out there know exactly why this is?
I just got back from the cinema where I saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the new Woody Allen flick for which Penelope Cruz last night won an Oscar. Thoroughly enjoyable. Thoroughly. I don’t know what it is about Woody Allen. It’s just so real, and it’s so surreal. And so rude. And so much fun. Ridiculous. I don’t know. See it. It’s not the most amazing Woody Allen, but it certainly hit the spot tonight. I sometimes think that if I could meet one Hollywood director, just one, it would be him. Not Spielberg, not Scorsese, not any of the greats that are still around. Just Woody. Maybe because there’s just the smallest chance I may be as neurotic as he is. It gives me hope. Here’s a preview:
For your viewing pleasure (I spent the weekend basically viewing every video ever made by Improv Everywhere, and I think this one is my favorite), the BEST GAME OF BASEBALL EVER, and I mean ever. You don’t even have to like baseball to love this clip.
I warn you now. This will be something resembling a rant. Or philosophy. Or just depressive mumbo-jumbo. But it will only be as long as my crappy laptop battery will allow as I couldn’t get one of the only two tables at this cafe that are situated by a wall socket.
62% – here I go
It’s raining. It’s a good thing for Tel Aviv. It feels something like Christmas when it rains. It’s far more lively. People rushing about. Cars not used to splashing through puddles get pedestrians wet by accident. It’s kind of joyful. I holed up for a while in The Third Ear music and movie place, and then ran as fast as I could across the boulevard to a cafe because it was really coming down. I’m in a “glassed in” section that cafes tend to build out for the winter here. I’m kind of outside. I’m kind of in. It’s pleasant. And there are space heaters above us. And the rain is audibly pounding. It’s kind of a respite for me. But I’m still not feeling good.
58%
I lack structure. I’m not good when I lack structure. But I knew that this was coming. When I gave up the structure of a miserable job, I knew there was a big chance I’d flounder. I knew there was a big chance I would leap for another job, for another course, for something to make me get up in the morning. But once I establish a structure, I get very tired of it, very quickly. How does one live with structure and live without structure? How can one be comfortable in either situation? I love and hate both. I need and reject both.
56%
I dream of having ultimate purpose. I dream of deciding, this is it, I love the environment (or abused women, or tax reform, or crochet knitting, or model rocket building) so much that I will devote myself to making a change in this one particular field. Nothing will stop me! I will not yield! I am an environment saving (or women saving, tax reforming, crochet knitting rocketry) machine! I will form a company, a union, something! Or I will get a job with an existing agency and do it! I will get up every day, knowing that even though I may only be filing today, or only sweeping the floor today, or sitting in boring meetings today, I am ultimately doing something for what I love! I have purpose! I am doing my small part in one specific field, and over the course of a lifetime, I will have done something meaningful, I will have helped progress, I will have been able to sleep through the night, have friendships, have a love, clean my house, plant a garden, with the peace of knowing that 9-5, 5-6 days per week, I have purpose. That I function. That I do. That I count.
53%
That was idealistic wasn’t it? Life didn’t used to be like this. One existed to keep existing. Your dad was a silversmith? You apprenticed, you worked hard, you learned, you took over for him, you made enough money, got to marry, got to procreate and sustain that family because you had a profession. Or you have land. It’s your one asset. You grow food on it. It sustains you. You have a surplus. You sell it, you trade it, you have more under your belt. You marry. You have kids. You survive. You exist.
50%
So, why do we keep doing it? Over time, we have gotten to have more and more leisure time. In other words, we have more time to enjoy ourselves. And we have more time to think. So. What does this mean? We become more introspective, sure. And we can become gluttonous libertines, too. We start to think about meaning. Why are we here? Why is life such a struggle? Why continue? Because it’s also pleasant. Because food tastes good, sex feels good, talking warms us in a way a fire can’t, sleep is nourishing and pleasant. So…do we work hard so we can come home and enjoy the pleasures in our lives? Love our husbands and wives and lovers and children and sing songs and eat cake and drink wine? Is that enough? Has that always been it? Is that it now?
45%
I’m losing my train of thought. I don’t know if it wouldn’t just be prudent for me to find any old PhD program who would take me and just fall into the world of this, of books, of depressive philosophy. But that would be a pleasure in itself. Painful though it may be.
I’m just struck by the nothingness now. I feel sometimes that I’m nothing. That everything that I have accomplished is passed. That even though I have been productive in the past. Even if I’ve created great art. Even if I’ve once worked hard, if I’m not doing it now, I am nothing. And my goals seem so trivial. Work as a “traveling chef” while I edit my novel so I can send it out to get published. Maybe. Cooking seems so…nothing. It’s not like saving the whales. Or saving the economy. Or even reading philosophy books at a university. It feels on the one hand quite blue color and hard physical labor and crazily demeaning; and on the other hand it feels really decadent and over the top with the menus I plan and the heights I aspire to and the “world peace” I sometimes feel I can achieve if only I can educate people on how fantastic the history and processes of food really are. And yet, beyond the one catering gig I had, I have no leads. Sure, I’ve not done much of any marketing, or asking around, or making of flyers or anything. But I have distributed some 100 business cards and people were practically offering me work all over the place. Ah, c’est la vie. Nobody is true to their word, most of the time. Or am I just being cynical because I’m having a bad day/week/month?
40%
Joy. There are beautiful things about being here. About our existence. Whether we are base animals, working hard just to feed and sustain the next generation, so they can do the same thing. Or whether we are these huge thinkers, these pompous philosophs (or should I say sophists), who are so wrapped up in themselves, they cannot see the forest for the trees. If it’s a matter of work (dare I say, “work will set you free?”) and simple pleasures of home, hearth, and God, or something much larger…I don’t know.
38%
I live in a world of chocolate. I live in a world where I can sit sheltered from the rain in a glass box, sipping a latte. I have a laptop. I have internet. I express my opinion to millions (or maybe a dozen or so) strangers, freely. I go to a shrink, weekly. I take prescription drugs. I drink whisky. I live in a world where I wonder about it. I live a life I cannot understand. I am continuously in awe of things I discover. I am continuously puzzled by things I can’t wrap my head around. Are these not all wonderful things? Are these not things that in their own way bring me joy? Maybe even give me purpose? No, not purpose. That’s going too far.
34%
I have always, always, always believed that things, all things, only have the meaning we bestow upon them. A religious person believes in God, in God’s power, love, grace, etc. An athiest does not. Yet they live in the same world. And they are both correct. Meaning is our attempt to give significance to the things around us, and hence to our lives.
32%
But, if I believe that meaning is an artificial construct, then what am I doing here? If I don’t believe that anything means anything, can I still care? Well, sure, right? Sure, we’re all going to die. But some people suffer more than I do, some people even starve and die painful deaths. There is no sense in some of us people being wealthy and some being poor. That’s the way it is now. I’m not saying it “shouldn’t” be this way. But this is the reality. I can still do something about it. From giving a small donation in a tin on the street corner, to devoting my life to alieviate poverty in, say, Africa. I can do something, even if I accept that things are the way they are, just because they are.
30%
50 ways to leave your lover is playing. I love this song. I really do love Paul Simon’s work.
So, we are an accident. Something that happened. Big Bang — massive expansion — stars, planets, volcanoes, atomospheres, amino acids, cells, and finally us. Nobody before. Nobody after. Nobody watching. And even if someone were?
29%
Here I sit at a cafe. Really sad, and no reason to be so. My tears have no meaning. If I applied myself, I could be great. I have that background. I have that education. I have that elloquence. I even hhave the connections. And I don’t know what to do. Maybe this is indeed depression. Massive depression. Maybe if I took more drugs, I would feel like I was over the moon, clean the house, get a job, finish the book in lightening speed, sell a million copies, move to Paris like I want, eat croissants, go shopping, have a lover who really loves me, have babies, have a vegetable garden in Provence, drink wine, grow vineyards, make wine, write funny stories, sing pretty songs, and die a peaceful death, full of fat French cheese, lush Belgian chocolate, and smiling faces all around. One more pill a day? Just one more pill? Wasn’t this what I thought one pill ago? Is this more of an existential dillema than a psychological one? Do I need more therapy? Or a weekly chat with a philosopher? Would winning a million dollars change anything? Would it?
26%
I think I’ll stop soon. Nobody will have read this far. I’m not nearly as intelligent as people think I am. I still can’t get over the feeling that unless I am productive, unless I have a title, unless I am earning, unless I am creating something, I am nothing. How different would the world have been without me? Not much. Or would it?
I am spinning in circles, and I don’t know the way out. I feel so sad. I hate not having purpose. Because in all actuality, I have too much purpose. I cannot decide. I can’t. Why can’t I just go work for Greenpeace? Go join the Peace Corps? Get a job at a bank? Earn a paycheck and drown my sorrows with….simple joys? I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’ve never known.
22% – it’s not safe to go to zero, is it?
Still, I have to remember that I have good days. So good, it’s scary. Days when every flower is a gift. When every new thing I learn is reason enough to have been born. Why am I like this?
So, is it wrong to be holed up at home? I suppose not, unless it changes or affects your life negatively. Kind of like the definition of a phobia or neurosis. Whatever. I’m getting out. After seeing the two movies I rented (Desert Hearts and The Girl in the Cafe — I highly recommend both), I am getting showered (at 7:46 pm, good grief) and out of the house, finally. Well, it’s Saturday. And I’ve got some appointments this week, so not all is at a loss. I need to get out. And I’m going to see another film. This time, at the cinema. Good grief. At least I’m going with a friend.
I’ve been surfing blogs after a nice day out. The day out was a pleasant surprise. Saw a friend, visited the cats I’m sitting, and went to “Ha’Ozen Ha’shlishit,” or, The Third Ear, Tel Aviv’s premiere independent music and film center, where you can buy and rent just about anything. I rented two films I’ve wanted to see for a long while, a couple soul searchers. I’m still really confused, borderline depressed, sluggish, and weird. But, I’m getting on. Read a great book yesterday, The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett. Read it in one sitting and was much the merrier for it.
Right as I got the The Third Ear, there was a graffiti-ed sentence on a wall: “What we had to do to get by” and beneath it, “Know hope,” with a heart. I don’t know if it’s a campaign or what. But I wanted to cry. In a good way. Kind of.
And just now, from blog to blog to blog…as you do…discovered the YouTube site of “Improv Everywhere,” a fab company which stages grand acts of joy, randomly in public. You might remember that people frozen in Grand Central Station, the video that went viral last year. Here’s something I adore. Enjoy!
Yes, I’m having one of those blurry, kind of fun filled, kind of exhausting days. Within 24-hours I have been to Tel Aviv, Haifa, and now Jerusalem. Sure, on American or even European standards, these places are pretty close. Not so, here. I’ve been on a train and six buses in less than a day. Why? Friends, of course, completely putting ruin to my “week of health,” that I so aspired to in my last post.
What have I been doing, might you ask?
Started out visiting two adorable kitties (not my own) whom I’m looking after for the week, and ended up having a marvelous time playing games with them, brushing them, having fun looking out windows with them, and then snuggling for a bit while I read a book. A yummy sort of visit, wouldn’t you think?
Saw friends from all nationalities and living in different parts of the country — including Dutch, Russian-American, Israeli-American, and plain old American. Well, I should also include the regular Israelis, too.
I drew a nude woman at a studio art session in Haifa (there is an extraordinarily interesting story to this — Despite the fact that I come from an artistic family and had a rather famous artist as a grandfather and I currently live in his former studio, I have never attempted to draw. Sure, I love to doodle, and as a kid, I colored lots. It’s a constructive activity for kids. But as an adult, or a teenager, even? No art classes for me since elementary school. Never learned to sketch figures, faces, etc. Didn’t think I could do it, and I was already over-committed to drama, music, clubs, societies, academics, and more. Well, last week I discovered that not only can I draw, I can draw well. I’m starting to suspect I’m a bit of a genius. And I’m not saying it in a conceited, self-aggrandizing way. I’m good at almost everything I’ve ever tried, to the extent that I could have, or could have had a career in just about anything. Which I had already suspected. Which makes my psych problems all the more exacerbating, as I can’t make up my mind, and I suspect it has much to do with the fact that I was always praised more for my talent than my effort, and it fucks with a kid’s mind to do that. Ok, I’m going to stop. So, I painted this nude woman very well, and I may even frame one of the brush-and-ink ones I did, the first time I’d ever used a Japanese brush before. An elegant almost organic tool. It even feels sexy to just handle it.)
Had drinks at a bar (non alcoholic for me for a change — orange juice mixed with Sprite) with a good friend and her artsy friends while gorging on gorgeous tempura-style broccoli and dipping sauces
Had a sleepover at my friend’s, complete with surfing fun blogs late at night (check out The Absolute Zero Project – a guy named Russell Freeland’s amazing site, amazing story, an inspired and addictive read), the poor-man’s healthy breakfast of bits of sliced cheese, a banana, some lukewarm herbal tea, and good conversation.
A hurried purchase of two, count ‘em, two new pairs of gym shoes, for only 100 shekels (about 25 USD) at a great (ordinarily kind of crappy) discount shoe outlet called Gali, this one at the Haifa bus station. See, I haven’t gotten to the gym yet, not for lack of trying — see, a couple days ago I got into gym clothes and everything, set the time aside, was all ready to go, and then couldn’t find one of my gym shoes. I tore my room apart to no avail. I only own one pair, and it was purchased back in 2004. So…almost 5 years with one pair of runners warrants a new pair…or two…and the price was more than right. Major discount. Major. Add to this my stupidity of wearing crocs, yes, crocs, holes in the sole and all, on what turned into a cold and rainy evening yesterday…and I was more than happy to have tightly tied closed toed shoes to skip around Jerusalem with.
Met up with another amazing friend in Jerusalem and had scrummy delicious leftovers at her house, including kasha (buckwheat) stewy stuff that had come out of a veggie stuffed pepper, some sort of lentil curry (I think), and some sort of casserole made out of greens and recycled sweet cornbread (this resembled stuffing) and tofu. Did I mention she’s an amazing cook?
And now, she’s napping as I blog…this has turned into a boring domestic report, oh my. Oh well. I’ve been invited to dinner, and I think I will stay…a mutual friend is returning home, a lovely sweet man, who is bringing back oodles of sweets and junk food for us from his native land called Liverpool. I tried to convince him to bring me wine gums and skips, a kind of reconstituted artificial crisp that fizzles in your mouth, both foods that bring back memories of endless rides on British trains with green fields, sheep, churches, big grey skies, and streaks of rain outside my window as I snacked snowly on these sinfully delicious snacks, reading fantastical novels, and relishing every minute of it. But no. He thinks skips are disgusting, which of course, they are, but he’ll happily bring me the wine gums. You can’t win it all. And then, and then, back to Tel Aviv I’ll head, a mere 27 hours after I’ve left it. A huge triangle have I created across the land. At least I had excellent company and good reading (borrowed a copy of Sybil from my cat friend’s bookcase) between stops. And although it’s cold as bloody hell in Jerusalem and even colder indoors because of our bloody concrete structures, I have a little space heater in front of me, and if I squint, I can almost be persuaded its glow is that of a small burning fire.
I have not blogged in over a week. This is unusual. And it’s not been the best week. In fact, it’s been a highly puzzling week. Dublin was an amazing trip. Since I’ve been back, I’ve had a lot on my mind, and I’ve found myself semi-comatose, in the stay-caged-at-home-eating-crap-and-watching-reruns-of-West-Wing-in-order-ceaslessly, kind of way. And I can’t blog. Found myself putting it off, almost in fear, every day. What’s thrown me off? Well, back to reality from the high of vacation is always difficult. And I do have a strong melancholy streak. But there is something else on my mind. Some important issues, ignited by events and people in Dublin, but brewing for a while. Brewing for over a decade. And I just haven’t known if I could blog about them.
So, I’m asking for input. This blog is, in theory, anonymous. However, I have added the URL to my facebook profile, and have made it visible to most people, with the exception of work colleagues and some relatives. This has boosted my readership. It’s been valuable to me to know that people who know me, and who are interested, can know a bit more about my life. And it’s important to me that my name, my immediate contact info, not be out there for all to see. I don’t, however, want a closed “friends and family” blog. Originally, I wanted a place to rant, to write creatively, and to keep myself working, truthful, and sticking to my goals, because someone could be watching my progress. I liked the anonymity and the global community WordPress provided. Now, I think I have a decision to make. Or not. But the things I’ve been thinking about trouble me so much personally, that I’m not sure I want people I know-know to all know about it. But it would really help me to throw out these things onto the blank page and maybe, just maybe, have someone respond, have someone help, or at the very least, contribute to a larger conversation out there on these things. And I’m speaking so vaguely now, how could any of you know if this is minor minor or major major, or anything in between. I guess all that’s important is that these things are distressing me a bit, and it’s caused me to be paralyzed this week, at a time when I really need to be on the ball, in the game, designing websites, making calls, creating budgets, doing research, or at the very least, getting up to speed on editing my novel, now that I have a ton of feedback to work with. And here I sit, watching Season 2, Episode 22…which means I’ve watched 44 episodes this week. Which is about 2 days. 2 days out of 7, and I’ve slept a bit somewhere in there, and somehow dragged myself out of the house for a day to give my sister a “day of fun” for her birthday. So, any comments about the nature of blogging, any links to articles, and anecdotes of your own, would be appreciated. Of course, it’s my decision. And I’ll probably end up ranting anyway. I feel really alone right now, even though I’m not necessarily depressed. Just stuck. And I need to get myself unstuck.
Therefore — starting tomorrow, Sunday, February 15 (which is like a Monday in Israel, lest you think I’m some sort of crazy person who willingly forfeits a weekend), I am experimenting with a Week of Health. Yes, indeed, a week of health. I am the holder of a membership card to a gym, a really good one, and I’ve not been in months. Exercise is really good, I could use some, and if not for toning and weight loss, etc, on the short term, I really need the energy and endorphins this is supposed to kind of pump you up with. Plus, I am usually able to grab the treadmill in front of TV #8 that has non-stop BBC and BBC-esque documentaries, and I adore learning about medieval monastic orders, courtly love, weird science, and the bizarre eating habits of Britons. I am also pet sitting for a friend with a nice apartment in the center of town, and because I will have to visit daily anyway, I will use it as an office. Taking the laptop to a quiet place that is not my home or a cafe (that will cost me a ton of money in lattes and lunches, cumulatively speaking) will be good. I will force myself to work on my book, or create my new business website, every day for a week. And I will eat one green meal. This is not a chore. I genuinely like healthy food, it makes me full, and I don’t eat a ton of crap even when I am not eating healthy (powdered soup and toasted whole wheat bread with tahini…it’s just kind of carb heavy and a bit fattening…but not like chips and fries and cola and ice cream). It’s just that when you cook professionally, you do not like cooking for yourself. And cooking for one is depressing. I cook more when I know that I’ve got someone to eat with. Or someone coming over. And I am the type of person who just forgets to shop for groceries, and even when she can’t afford it will go out for lunch (and even budget lunches add up), and late at night will scrape the cabinets, eating stale crackers, and powdered soup (that I discovered has MSG recently and scared the crap out of me) and things like that. But I’ve done the grocery shopping tonight for the week. I’ve got a decent amount of greens and things that I think will be reasonable that I’d like to eat. Including a large tub of powdered soup (the only brand with no MSG — my God we must all be swimming in chemicals). So there. If I can stick to the plan, I’ll be OK. And if I can throw a tiny bit of housekeeping in there, like sweeping the floor, putting clothes back on the hanger immediately, and doing laundry more than once every two months, cleaning the cat box when it needs it, I’ll be golden.
Again, if you’ve done me the enormous honor of reading this far, any input on blogging and privacy would be greatly appreciated. Love to you all on this day of love.
Amendment to the earlier post. Yes, I just got back from my day at the Guinness storehouse. Yes, it was, again, fabulous. Not AS fabulous as the day that began at the Four Seasons that kept on giving and giving in so many fabulous intoxicating ways. But nearly. And yes, today was another first. My first taste of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. It is everything you could hope it would be, and more. I did an entire nearly hour-long tasting of whiskey and whisky (that be Scotch to those of you who don’t detect the spelling nuances), double malts (Irish), single malts (Scotch), and some superior blends. Yes, today again had some lovely Champagne and Proseco. And some other decent finds. But not as many interesting finds as before. The wine was much more “industrial/commercial,” and one company even brought in wine in a can (like a beer, can you believe it…ugh…couldn’t chance that).
The whiskey. Oh dear. So here is what I tasted, in order:
Bushmills Malt 16 year old – aged in Bourbon, Sherry, AND Port casks, which gives it a gorgeous almost cherry color. Very nice indeed.
Bushmills Malt 21 year old – Bourbon, Sherry, and Madeira casks.
Bushmills 1608 Reserve – a very special edition, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the distillery. It’s the oldest place in the world to have a license, I think, over 300 years or so.
The Scotch whisky. Oh me oh my, the single malts:
Glenkinchie 12 year old – made by a woman, light peat, sweet, gorgeous, quite light.
Cragganmore 12 year old – less smokey, less woody, much more fruity, bananas, nice and accessible. But not for me! I want the smoke!
Royal Lochnagar 12 year old – the smallest distillery in Scotland. Very smooth. Not my fave, but very very good.
Talisker 10 year old – MY FAVORITE!!! Amazing. The amazingly adept man who was leading us through, the “spirit ambassador” of his company, had us pour a drop into our hands, rub into both hands, let dry for a second (evaporated in a heartbeat), and then cup our hands, and breathe out of them. Leather. Wood. Ocean. Peat. Amazing. The taste is very rich and smokey. It’s the only distillery on the Isle of Skye. If you like whiskey, and haven’t tried this, DO!
Caol Ila 12 year old – Also an exquisite whisky. Higher on the peat scale than Talisker, I’m told, but I’m not as big a fan.
Enter the fancy blends:
Johnnie Walker Black Label – Very respectable. I’m not blend drinker. But it’s OK.
Johnnie Walker Green Label – here’s where it got interesting. The Green label is a pure malt. It’s a blend of single malts only, along with a grain malt. Our Spirit Ambassador reckoned that this was a perfect blend for single malt drinkers to introduce them to blended, and a perfect drink for blend drinkers, to introduce them to single malts. It’s really interesting. See, they take the best of the best, including Talisker and Caol Ila and Lochnagar and mix them up.
Johnnie Walker Blue Label – the king of blends. It is a blend of 42 single malt scotches. It mixes every region in Scotland. You have the sea and peat of the islands, the heather of the highlands, and the good solid flavors of the Speyside. AND what I didn’t realize is that Johnny Walker kind of acts as a librarian of Scotch. They collect from distilleries all over the place for years. The blue label might have some scotch that is over 80 years old, some that’s 60, and a good deal that is 30-40 years old. Some of what goes in there doesn’t exist anywhere else, because the distilleries have since shut down. How cool is that. See, I’m not for the blends, usually. I like the nuances and color of the single malts. But, if and when I have the chance to drink a Green or a Blue label, I’d absolutely jump at the chance. And so should you, if you’ve read this far!
Other highlights of today’s tasting included an amazing Cognac table from Leopold Gourmel. It’s extremely accessible cognac. They label the bottle with the exact flavors you can expect to find in it. Charming man who presented them, Olivier. Urged us to become, “Cognac Intelligent.” They have names such as Cognac Age du Fruit, and du Fleurs, and des Epices, as the years go by, so change these flavors. Of particular interest was the Cognac Bio Attitude, the world’s first 100% organic Cognac, from beginning to end. And finally, the finest I’ve ever tasted, something special indeed — the Quintessence (Lot 31) – the 30 year old Cognac, this from 1971. It was so smooth. So beautiful to drink. No spitting this one out. Thank you to these wonderful folks.
The lovely Miss S and I ended up drinking quite a bit of Champagne Laurent-Perrier, of which they had an interesting unsweetened “Ultra Brut,” a Brut Rose which is made in the traditional winemaking way (most champagnes make white wine and red wine separately, then mix them before the bubble-making process, but not these folks!), and a really really fab “Grande Siecle” their flagship, a multivintage wonder (always 3 years together), 50% Chardonnay, 50% Pinot Noir. We had some good Proseco as well, but chose to end the day with a second glass of the Grande Siecle before turning tail and going to eat…
OYSTERS! That’s right. Straight to Bentleys right on St Stephens Green for a lovely spread of 12 raw seawater wonders, all local, all fresh and gorgeous. All the champagne and proseco sort of made us want them, and I said, why not, I’ll treat, we’re on vacation! Wonderful! And we had another glass of proseco to go along with them. Ha ha! We met another uni friend there from way back, another lovely Miss S, had a great chat, and then the second Miss S took off, and the first Miss S and I went off for Thai food to finish off the night.
And here I sit. Writing for way too long. Giddy from this great day. And I have a taxi coming in under 6 hours to take me to a pre-dawn flight out of here. We’ve had so much snow in Dublin this week, half of me is hoping to get snowed in so I can have another fabulous adventure with the sainted Miss S, to whom I am so very indebted for helping make my week in Dublin fantastic indeed.
Today is my last full day here in Dublin. I’m a bit sad to leave tomorrow, but not heartbroken. It’s given me energy and a bit of peace of mind being here. It’s really exciting to be “going for your dreams.” Life can be stressful, but goodness gracious, there is indeed so much to look forward to. A lot of things are hard (publishing a book, building a company, making ends meet, creating a lasting mark on the world…), but it can be fun, exciting, joyful, and good to simply be going for them. Putting in a strong effort. This simple optimism is missing from my life on a day to day basis, quite often. And it’s something that was essential in my life when I was in uni, and especially when I lived in Dublin 9 years ago. I’ll have to find a way to remember this. To make it mine, daily, again.
Yesterday, I had a “day of decadence,” I think I’ll call it. Got up quite late, went to The Winding Stair, an old independent bookstore that has a cafe above it. Well, it’s been completely redone, and the cafe is a gourmet restaurant in the best liberal Irish tradition — local fare, local ingredients, organic produce, imaginative yet wholesome menu — and just a lovely bright room, lots of wood, overlooking the Liffey right at the Ha’penny bridge. I ate lamb liver, streaky bacon, mustard mash, and whiskey sauce, with an interesting amber beer from Italy I’d not had before. Really lovely. Liver was more cooked than I liked, but still a good meal. Very warm, smart, attentive staff. I’m so glad I went back there. In college, I used to hang out there a bit. The cafe then was “literary themed” which I do kind of miss in the place now. You could get sandwiches named after famous books, and I was quite looking forward to a “Watership Down,” or an “Anna Karenina,” or something like that. Lamb’s liver was more than fine, of course, but it would be fun if they’d included more books in the decor, and added back some of the whimsical which made the place so special before.
I then rushed up to one of the main cinemas in town off of Parnell Square, and I saw the much praised Slumdog Millionaire. It was fun to see a film in the middle of the day. It was a feel-good experience. Nice story. Having just been in India, I actually wasn’t too keen on “being back there” so soon. But everyone’s been raving… Thing is, as good as it was, it wasn’t anything to write home about for me. It was fun, it was romantic, it was a nice glimpse into India. But it doesn’t seem like Oscar calibre to me. It was average-good. A box office hit, sure. Nice color, nice young people, hard work triumphing, a deserving youth. But I don’t think I saw any stellar performances. We shall see…
Then, I went to Kilkenny, not the place, but the design shop on Nassau Street. There is a jewelry designer I am absolutely smitten with, and I was told I might be able to find his stuff at this shop. Sure enough, a whole case of Alan Ardiff. His works move! They do! It’s like gorgeous clockwork in miniature hanging on your neck. Ducks bob on water, stars rotate, doors open…it’s amazing. And so very pretty. All silver, all cute, and so unique. Problem was, I didn’t have a spare 200 Euro. I think I’ll have to create a list of birthday requests for my family…it’s cheeky, but I would really love to have one of those pieces. It’s art. And it would make my day. Here is one of my favorites, called, “Follow Your Star.”
Follow Your Star
I then dashed over to The Market Bar on Fade Street where I met some old friends from Trinity. Such fun. Munching on tapas (well, I got a cheese and meat platter and they barely ever pecked!), drinking wine, and catching up with such good people. One is a filmaker who I pray will make it big. The other a director and arts administrator who basically runs the Dublin theatre Festival. A great evening.
And now, now, now, I must get offline, get dressed, and get out of the house! I’m going to another wine tasting extravaganza with the lovely S, this time at the Guinness storerooms. Hurrah! I love Dublin. Should I find a way to move back? Should I find a way to export my friends to be near me? Start an Israeli-Irish winery? Perhaps, perhaps? Ah life. It’s good right now. We’ll see about tomorrow when I have to be on a 6 am flight out of here…
How does the world do it? The gods and the cherubs and saints and dead Israelite forefathers have conspired to make my Dublin trip bizarre and incredibly amazing. I have spent the entire day with a brand new friend S, a gorgeous ridiculously intelligent woman, a mutual friend of my friend who turned 30, for whom I came to Dublin in the first place. And we have been swilling world-class wines! All day! And to top it off, I have had my first glass of Cristal! Amazing. And Tokaji, and 10-year old and 20-year old Portos, and climax-inducing Muscatos, and Reislings to change your world, and more and more and more (including a local cheese spread, the best ham I’ve ever tasted, and a smoked fish selection — tuna, mackerel, wild salmon, and kippers — that I thought were the absolute best).
How did this happen? S’s parents own an off-license (Irish for liquor store) and pub in a nice Dublin suburb, and she’s in business with them. This wine tasting? A wine distributor she works with sometimes had this amazing array set up at the Four Seasons. And they welcomed me with open arms. And we met more and more people, one of whom was a weird-ish Maltese guy who’s been living in Dublin for 15 years, being a chef and restaurant manager, who latched on to us. We ended up closing the tasting with some Proseco, then moved on to the hotel’s bar, drinking a Rioja and a Reisling (spent 80 Euro, goodness), some horrifically overpriced bland fish pub food, and then moved on (well, we crashed…) the post wine tasting dinner event. See, S had never heard of these happening, but when we got there, we just snuck happily in and had a huge free meal — black pudding and rocket salad atop some stewed apples (I think), veal and mashed potatoes, lemon tarte and brownies, cheese platter (!!!), and coffee and tea. With, of course, a huge amount of great great great wine. Our bizarre (socially awkward) Maltese friend with us the entire time, and joined by my birthday girl friend after she got out of work, it was just one of those evenings that dragged on and on, but didn’t drag. It unraveled and unwrapped itself like a gift. The Maltese man ended up inviting me to Italy to plant grapes at a new vineyard that he was going to be investing in as soon as he’d raised 75,000 Euro, insisted I take his number, and did all but beg me to get together later in the week to, “have the finest glass of wine you’ll ever have in your life.” AND the gorgeous manager of this upscale wine bar cum gourmet Irish restaurant who I’d been eying and who may have been eying me at the wine tasting earlier in the day asked for me number! Yay!
I’m more than a bit frazzled, giddy, and delighted to have made new friends, spent time with old friends, and I’m currently being horribly anti-social by typing away at this blog while my two girlfriends are chatting around me at 12:30 am. Life is lovely.
And for your viewing pleasure, a film you MUST all see. My friend’s original show. That’s right. She wrote and directed this funny gem, and she’s touring to Abu Dhabi tomorrow.
This song is forbidden on French radio. A Georges Brassens oldie, here sung by France’s first lady, Carla Bruni. God, she is stunning.
For a really great translation and explanation about why this song is so risque, visit this cool site I just discovered, Brassens with English. If you scroll to the bottom, you get the real translation of what “je bande” actually means.
Funny how I spent the evening ranting about maintaining a healthy vagina. It doesn’t matter for the time being anyway. The lovely man broke up with me not half an hour ago. Right around midnight. I wasn’t expecting it, but it makes sense, if I had been reading the signs clearly instead of wondering what mind games were going on and if I was doing something wrong. He was so sweet about it. And I’m so sad. In some ways, sure, it wasn’t the most natural fit. But in some ways, I was far more comfortable than I’ve been in a long time. He was kind to me, and I really need that. And I’m crying. And it hurts, and it will hurt. It was so nice to have a boyfriend. A musician. A sweet soul. Beautiful eyes. Made me feel like I was pretty. And normal. For a while. And the thought of having to look again. To find again. To possibly sign up for jdate again. Just turns my stomach. I hate dating. I don’t understand men. I feel like I never know where I stand. And, hell, I barely know myself. Sometimes for inexplicable reasons, I just turn off. And then there’s the never-ending libido issues I have. Goodness. But it will be OK. It must be. Someone sweet liked me for a while. I will be OK.
Words spoken by a gynecologist whose door I’ll not darken again.
No warnings will I provide. I’m just being frank. Not graphic, for any members of the male species who deign to read this.
For about a year I’ve had an issue with yeast infections. I never had one before January 2008. Never. Now, this is my fourth, or something like that, in a year. This could be for several reasons, the biggest one, I suppose, being sexual activity. The more you have, the more you’re prone. Throw in a lot of stress, too much sugar binging, and latex condoms, and this could be a recipe for disaster. I’ve never been very sexually active. Sort of a here and there, whatever, sort of a deal with me. I’ve also never been in a long term relationship, so I’ve not yet gotten to get “practice” having a lot, often, with one partner.
And I’m getting over a bad infection now. Officially, it should be over, or over tonight, with all the meds I was given. This was the first time it was borderline painful. There was blood, too, from I suppose, irritated skin, chaffing, who knows, which really really scared me. So, off to the doctor I went. And both the GP and the specialist I went to see were so very very helpful, that I think I’ll nominate them both for doctor of the year award. As if. Report them both to the medical board, while I’m at it. Neither one examined me! Not one! When a patient walks in and says, I think I got an infection in my foot, you look at the damned foot. Now, when I patient walks in and says I think I got an infected vagina, you’d think at least the gynecologist would put me in the stirrups! But no. No. Take a pill, says one, have a cream, says the other. ” Yeast infections are just a part of life for a sexually active woman, why, if you’re very active, you could get one once a month.”
LIKE HELL
And thus begins
“The Tale of the Gluttonous Gyno”
(horns sound a la medieval Disney-esque film)
Once upon a time a maiden was distressed. Her maidenhood long gone, the disuse of her god given figure gave her a right to her maidenhood, if only by title, as yet. Alas, a kindly knight had charmed her silly, and one thing led to another (with words, I’ll not mess about willy nilly), and now the poor maid found herself with a bothersome itch way down in her unmentionables. This itch became quite a bitch and transformed itself to a sharpening pain of whose magnitude increased in an embarrassing proportion. With a drop of pink on her toilet roll sheet, she took matters into her own hands, and took advantage of the socialized health care in her native Kingdom of Isra-el. Almost like magic, a doctor could see her, but at the mention of “Yeast Infection,” his tone withdraw warmth, his eyes rolled, and his fingers typed furiously on the keyboard. Two printouts he handed her, a prescription and a referral, and out she was rushed, the door slamming behind her. Well! At least there was hope, she thought, an even better doctor will have the answer! But the only “Women’s Doctor” as they subtly called them, that could see her post haste was an hour away in a far off shire, two bus rides and a long walk away! I will get to the bottom of this, yes I will, so she booked the appointment and googled the bus route maps. Upon her arrival, exhausted, sweating, hot, and enraged by her endlessly long journey on public transport, she could not immediately find this mysterious doctor’s office. Into one building she went, checking every door plaque on every floor, without any luck. She tried next door, again checking furiously, her heart pounding, the minutes to her appointment ticking away, until kindly receptionist showed her the way. “Afeka Medical” it said in huge letters, why how could I miss it the first, the second, and third time? Some people were huddled outside, sucking down their cancer sticks, “how ugly,” thought the maiden, that here where pregnant women visit all the time. But the clinic was lovely, the waiting room tastefully decorated, the soap in the loo smelling divine, and she took her seat, her sweat slowly cooling. Soon, yes soon, she would have her chance to speak with the man who knows the answers. A few minutes pass. A few minutes more. And then one of the smokers, a most portly, waddling man enters the office and walks down a hall. The doctor will see you now, the receptionist tells her, and she could hardly believe it. Yes, this man, this ashen, obese (so obese his belly flopped way over the buckle of his belt), lousy excuse for a human being, not to mention a doctor, was her new government-sponsored gynecologist. The gleaming office reeked of cigarettes, and at the mention of, yes, again, Yeast Infection, his eyes rolled, and he said, listen, the “Vagina is a zoo.” He proceeded to take out a sheet of paper, and on top wrote:
Vagina = Zoo
Beneath, he drew a box with a vertical line down the center. On one side, he made a list:
Warm
Wet
Dark
Closed
You see, that makes the vagina a kind of hothouse. There’s tons of stuff living and growing in there. You’re worried this is your fourth yeast infection? It happens all the time. And then, on the other side of the box, across from the list, he starts drawing:
(this represents all the squiggles and lines he draw, supposedly representing “animals” or bacteria or something)
Aghast by what she was seeing, the maiden still wanted some answers. This thing sitting before her was still getting paid. What can I do to prevent this happening again? Says the well-informed maiden. Nothing! Says the ogre. What about taking acidophilus? That hasn’t been proven to do much of anything, says the ash tray. What about eating yogurt? Applying yogurt? No, doesn’t help, says the gelatinous lump of flesh. So there’s nothing I can do? No. How often can I get these things? Well, if you’re really sexually active, once a month. Not so sexually active, three or four times a year. The fleshy monster handed her a prescription for a cream, with no instructions, mind you, and she bolted for the door, 2.5 minutes after having entered this room. Thankful this creep hadn’t examined her, and fuming that she could potentially expect to have a yeast infection every month, like menstruation, should she care to have an active sex life, she stormed off to the bus stop for the long ride home. Afeka Medical, a-fecka you! Dr Nicotine-Blubber!
OK, I got carried away. Asshole doctor. Impressive socialized healthcare system. But very unimpressive doctors. And I’m still really confused and miffed about this whole thing. If I’m sensitive to this, to sex, to latex, whatever, am I doomed to have yeast infections regularly forever? Married women out there, women who have lots of sex out there, please answer me with some feedback. I don’t believe this to be true. I’ve never heard of this being the case. I someday would very much like to be a married person, or at least a person who can enjoy sex (which hasn’t been the case thus far). I really want my new relationship to work here, and I’m afraid I’m ruining it myself. I’m just trying to heal here. I did buy the acidophilus tablets. I’m taking them twice daily, as the bottle says. I’m also eating a ton of yogurt, even though I hate the stuff. And I’m off sugar for a while, as hard as it is. I’m just wondering if it’s a latex allergy. Those things can develop. Because I didn’t have a discharge this time. Just horrible itching. Though doubtful, it could be an STD. Why did those asshole doctors not examine me! Should I have insisted? Should I go back there? Should I wait my turn and see a female doctor? This is completely unacceptable. And as I know I’m prone to physical psychosomatic conditions (yes, month long “urinary tract infection” last year proved that), stress really affects how I feel in that part of the body. God I am so screwed. Or rather, I’ll be totally un-screwable if I can’t figure this out.
So, if you’ve read this far, I’m open to advice and ideas.
You want to hear about my first huge kick-ass professional catering experience? Well, you’re gonna. I served traif to Israelis, and they lapped it up like tiny kittens tasting cream for the very first time. (Insert evil laugh here). Traif, for all you non-Jews out there, means non-kosher food. And in this case, oh boy, oh boy did I go all out! The timing was perfect. Perfect! A different tray of hot food came out every ten or fifteen minutes or so. There was just enough food. Not too much left over. Nobody went hungry. And people were raving. I’m thrilled. The menu, for your reading and salivary pleasure:
Bacon wrapped shrimp smothered with Roquefort cheese
Crisp filo triangles of 5 types of wild mushroom sauteed in red wine
Baked prosciutto-wrapped medjoul dates stuffed with almonds (THE hit of the evening)
“Gourmet” deviled eggs, complete with capers, dijon mustard, anchovy paste, and fresh chive
Smoked salmon on garlic dill creme fraiche mousse with fresh thyme
Veal liver and goose fat pate (yes, I made this by myself, from scratch) with homemade fig and onion compote (b-day boy loves figs)
A vegetable platter to end all vegetable platters (carrot, fennel, baby cornichon-style cucumbers, celery, tri-colored peppers, vine-ripened cherry tomatoes) with three homemade dips: slow-roasted sesames in fresh goat labaneh cheese, fried garlic and fresh chive in a creamy farmer’s cheese, and a killer thousand island (don’t ask me why, but Israelis are gaga for 1000 island. It’s like their ranch)
Ceviche of Dennis fish (a local fatty fish), and as the birthday boy cannot stand cilantro (aka fresh leafy coriander), this was made with parsley, ginger, chive, green onion, shallots, lemon zest, lemon juice (of course, to “cook” the fish in), olive oil, salt, pepper, and a dab of chilli (I served them in tiny little cups, like rectangular shot glasses, with adorable wee forks. Gone like hot cakes)
Baked Brie: a lovely creamy brie cheese, raspberry preserves, and slivered almonds, all melted inside the golden loveliness of a buttery puff pastry (the Israelis went orgasmic on this one)
AND
The Main Course
Two Moroccan Tagines:
Beef stewed with onion, garlic, dried apricots, figs, prunes, and dates, seasoned with cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and course black pepper
Eggplant, zucchini, onion, garlic, fresh vine tomatoes, and chick peas, stewed with a bottle of red wine, bay leaves, and a touch of chilli
Both served over couscous
AND
Three salads, of various compositions, the most interesting of which was the fresh baby leaves, red onion, anjou pear, and roasted walnut salad (funny story – totally forgot to make salad dressed and rushed at the very last second, dumping a ton of freshly squeezed lemon juice that I had on hand into some olive oil, and then added a few spoons of the fig jam from the pate, whisked a bit, salt and peppered, and dumped over a couple of the salads, and then used the 1000 island on another one. Well, my lemony concoction apparently went over so well, people were scraping the last bits of salad from those two bowls…1000 island went almost untouched…)
AND
Punch: fresh mint lemonade with ginger, spiked with vodka. Hit the spot.
It was a very ambitious menu. I only realized this after I presented it to the family, them oohing and aahing. It took every bit of effort over the course of the week not to have a panic attack over this. See, the difficulty was this. It was a surprise party. Which meant, this ambitious menu could not be cooked in the house in which it was going to be served. No, oh no. It was arranged that I could use the kitchen of an aunt in the same neighborhood, and then transport all of the food 2 hours before the party was to begin. Right. But this was going to take more than cooking some things on the same day. My uncle very generously offered me his kitchen earlier in the week (my kitchen is less than a galley with absolutely no counter space), and I took him up on it. I was there for about 10 hours on Friday, making as many preparations as possible so that I wouldn’t have a heart attack the following day. The pate was made there. All of the veg for the platter was chopped up there. All of the dips were made. The mushrooms were sauteed there, so they could be rolled into filo the next day. Etc. etc.
I haven’t worked this hard in ages. Maybe ever. And you know what? As hard as this life may be. As strenuous physically as this was and may continue to be. I am still glad I left my high tech job. I’m still over the moon I’m out. I have no regrets. When my finances crash, I may think differently, but I am really OK now. I was really proud of the job I did. The food was very pretty, as stressed as I was. I almost lost it on a few occasions (would you believe that early arrival guests, sitting next to the kitchen, started eating raw shrimp and raw bacon they found on parchment paper on a baking sheet, and managed to eat half of this particular batch before I found them and nearly started fuming and scolding them! How crazy do you have to be to eat that shit raw! They were in the kitchen, for goodness sake…it wasn’t my fault they were butting their noses into my domain! Ee gad!). But I ultimately survived, appeared professional, passed out a couple dozen business cards, and hopefully, hopefully, will get a few jobs out of this. Because this was for family friends. Not exactly a profitable gig. But seeing as it was my first, I proved to myself I could do it. And do it impressively. Score!
I’ve been scattered since the catering gig (sleeping for the better part of 2 days), and I’ve put off blogging. What has been soothing my mind in the last two days is a series of videos I’ll share with you now:
I have had a great respect for Stephen Hawking since I first heard of him when I was 12 years old. I read his book, A Brief History of Time, and it affected me profoundly. So much of what he says, especially in this video, makes complete and utter sense. I am still in disbelief that forty years since the moon landing, we haven’t progressed much farther in terms of humankind’s physical exploration of the solar system. I don’t understand why there hasn’t been an effort to built a lunar colony. It’s so damned close and we’ve been there quite a few times. Mars has been “stalled” in my opinion. We have the capability. Why don’t we go? It’s so important to expand, to explore! To perhaps even save ourselves. As I’ve said before, we only matter to ourselves. We are only doing ourselves a disservice by not moving forward. If we don’t survive, the universe will not weep for us. The universe will be just fine. And even if it isn’t, so what? We won’t be here.
Now some humor:
I love this episode! Dr. Hawking has such a fantastic sense of humor.
Another good old clip. Love Carl Sagan! Yay for curiosity! Yay for the Big Bang!
I discovered this while randomly browsing Youtube, and let me tell you, it’s curiously bizarre. It comes from a Claymation film made in 1986 called The Adventures of Mark Twain. The scene comes from an unfinished and posthumously published novella by Mark Twain called The Mysterious Stranger. It deals with religion, philosophy, and morality, with an angel by the name of Satan playing the main role, one who does not understand right and wrong. The film is fascinating, and this scene is the topper; it was banned in the USA, and it’s always been omitted. If you’d like to see the complete film, it has been uploaded in its entirety (in sections, however), on Youtube. You can find part one here, and navigate from there.
OK, I’ve been too calm. Or too lazy. Or too “pretend grown-up” this week. The numbers for the party I am “catering” have risen from “maybe 30″ to “at least 50,” and I haven’t even done most of the grocery shopping yet. OMG!!! The plan was to do the groceries tonight, have them delivered to my uncle’s house where I’ll be cooking on Friday (tomorrow, OMG), do at least 50%, but hopefully closer to 70% or 80% of the prep while there, and then transfer the food, etc, to the suburban kitchen where I’ll be working all day Saturday. What you all might not realize is that because I’m in Israel, the grocery stores CLOSE at around 3 pm at the latest on Fridays because of Shabbat. Which means, better have more than enough beforehand because there is very little you can do otherwise.
Breathe. It’s going to be OK. What’s an extra 20 people. Just buy more stuff and cook in bigger batches. And it’s OK if your budget is a good 30-40% bigger, because, hey, the numbers increased. My worry is that I underestimated my ability to acquire the specialty items…it’s hard to get pork products and seafood here, as they’re not kosher. But hey, I bought a food processor yesterday! Pate should be a cinch. And I KNOW that I have enough couscous to feed an army. So just get to one of the non-kosher places today, and buy them out. Shrimp and bacon are not that unique.
I guess what’s really bothering me is that I am spending the day with the lovely boy, something that I am so excited about, seeing him on a weekday, in the daylight, and doing something real, in nature, etc. We’re going on a minor hike in the Jerusalem hills and then hopefully find a fun place to stop for refreshments and lunch. And I don’t want to have all of this on my mind. Ugh. AND I haven’t read and analysed the first third of my colleague’s book for tomorrow. Which, honestly, shouldn’t take more than an hour. But I still haven’t done it! AND I finally have my business card design, but I have to take it to print today!!! OMG.
OK, calm. Just get out of the house now. NOW. You’re in PJs. No need to shower, you took an hour-long bath yesterday. You can get to the printer now, and then maybe even hop over to the local uber-expensive specialty butcher’s and buy all of their bacon and shrimp…and do it all before your 10 am deadline! Yes! That way, I won’t have to be so antsy while hiking. It will be OK. It will be OK.
I accomplished next to nothing yesterday but had a nice time doing it. What I did do included picking up my sister’s belated Hanukah present from some main industrial post office depot and cooking lunch and hanging out with my other sister, after which we both trekked to find said post office depot, and then trekked some more to find a cafe that we could sit in that would allow us in with a sealed cardboard box (not an easy feat in Israel…we were looking for the small neighborhood variety that either couldn’t afford a security guard or just really didn’t think they needed one), so that we could open the box together over good chocolate and coffee, as was the instruction given by our sister who sent the box. We found a nice neighborhood cake shop with some very decent cake. The gifts were OK. I got a weird sweater, a weirder white blouse (that honestly looks like a cross between a chef’s jacket and a 60’s nurse’s uniform), a book I’d never heard of (in hardback), $15 to spend on iTunes, and a keychain supporting breast cancer. A chunk of metal made to look like a pink ribbon that cost my sister $2 at Macy’s, as it said on the backing, now hangs from my keys. Cool. It’s always nice to get presents. If you come at it from the perspective that you’ll probably not like anything, you probably will find something to like. And hey, it’s cold. I could use another sweater, as weird as this one is. So thanks little sister!
A couple nights ago, right after the water was turned on at the lovely man’s apartment, we were hanging out, tired as can be, and I honestly can’t remember how we got to the topic, but I remember saying something like…”you know, as closely related as we are to apes, I want to know why we’re different, I mean, when did we lose our hair? We’re naked! We’re not built for cold! I want to know how we lost our hair.” It must have had something to do with the fact that I was freezing, wrapped in a scarf, a blanket, and sitting in front of a space heater, desperately pretending it was an open fire and that I was some elegant lady who lunched, as I tried to gracefully read a book and held a glass of scotch I was sipping…all while trying to stop shivering. Well, I was reading a book and absent-mindedly swirling a glass of scotch. It made him laugh when he came into the room and saw me like that. Anyway, my love responded to my naked-humans-are-illogical statement with, “Have you heard of the aquatic ape theory?” I hadn’t. And after an entire evening of major procrastinating, now I know everything there is to know about our theoretical swimming ancestors. So, here we go:
(and I summarize from memory)
The Aquatic Ape Theory (or hypothesis), abbreviated as AAT or AAH, theorizes that before our early ancestors went to the savannas of Africa (where traditional anthropologists believe they went directly and developed most of our human traits, such as big brains, walking upright, etc), and after they left the jungles, there was an aquatic period where some groups were stranded on islands and in flooded areas, isolated from other apes for an extended period, and thus evolved separately. The physical characteristics of humans that support an aquatic or semi-aquatic phase include: walking upright (because in water, you have to to keep your head up, and the few primates that do have to go into water regularly do display this trait), bigger brains (seafood is much easier to catch than hunting big antelopes and things, and is more nutritious, especially with those Omega-3 fatty acids, what is believed over time to make brains grow big), fat (oh yes, we are really fat compared to all apes, and our fat is special because it is connected with our skin, like insulation, and very much like whale or dolphin or seal blubber — it’s insulation from the cold), fat babies (we are the only primates with fat babies who keep getting fat — which could be to make them buoyant and to be able to swim easier to follow mommy), no hair (in water, you don’t need it to keep you warm, you need fat to keep you warm. And the hair we have is said to be streamlined to how we swim), and a few dozen more things these devout theorists spill out, like breath control, the position of our larynx (which may be the key to us being able to speak at all), and more. It’s really convincing.
Except that the established scientific community thinks there is no evidence and is sometimes violently opposed to it. I think it’s a really cool and logical idea. I mean, how did we get really big brains so fast. The only other critters with brains as big and complex as ours are dolphins. And they go on and on about how stupid it is to walk on 2 legs when it makes you slower, clumsier, and gives you more health problems. On the savannah we must have been major food for sabre tooth tigers. In a major way.
So, in short, the champion of AAT/H for the past forty years is a little Welsh housewife by the name of Elaine Morgan, who has written some fascinating books that I’m now going to go out and find. Another website I found, one that claims to be attempting to be impartial and see both sides of this issue (but I think is actually one of the vehemently violent in sheep’s clothing), can be found here. What I do recommend is watching this very interesting BBC/Discovery Channel documentary, made in 1998, and uploaded in its entiretly on Youtube. Let me see if I can embed these videos for your ease.
Under 200 days until 30. Not sure how I feel about that. It has been an eventful 5.5 months, however. Best not to dwell. I’m doing OK today.
Fischer and Cassie-O
My male cat, Fischer, broke a really big heavy glass mirror this morning. He did it by somehow ricocheting off of my leg as he sort of sped, a la Tom and Jerry, through the apartment on a craze of some sort. So, I’m wondering if I’m partially responsible for it. And although I shouldn’t and don’t believe in luck, you never know, and it’s sort of always hanging there. Not really. But I’ve never broken a mirror or aided and abetted in the breaking of a mirror. I mean, I was the silly girl who in high school kissed the ceiling of her car when she passed through a yellow light and held her breath when driving past a cemetery. We used to say, seven years bad sex for anyone who didn’t. But do we believe it? What are your thoughts about superstition? I mean, even if you don’t believe in this stuff, who goes around breaking huge mirrors, you know?
Anyway, it was a messy cleanup, and as I’m messy anyway, it wasn’t fun. This mirror turned into sparkly fairy dust-like powder in some areas. I mean, the microscopic mirror fragments we’re talking about here will make it impossible to walk around without shoes for months. It mixed in with the random kitty litter which was scattered on the floor, and it got in the cracks in the tiles on the floor…ugh.
