49 Days: A day of lasts

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!

56 Days: Familiar it is not

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.

120 Days: Flashback 1991!

You know you wanna look!

The Age of the Supermodel

I have so much running through my mind…one of which is the book I have written that takes place in 1991…so, as a fun continuation of yesterday’s April Fools videos…here are some monumental videos from when I was 12 and living in Europe.  Enjoy the sexy bizarre mayhem of my youth.  It’s shockingly funny what kids are exposed to…

Ya, Army of Lovers?  What was up with that?  I haven’t googled them yet, but let me tell you, we were like, mesmerized by this video…the costumes, the bondage, cross dressing, makeup, and overt sex…right on TV during prime time.  Gotta love French TV.  But I think this group was German.   Ha, ha, dirty Germans…

Oh, yes, we had fun mimicking Prince gyrating to his guitar…my sister peed herself (on my bed, no less), in a fit of giggles, as we were impersonating him in front of the mirror (that was over my bed, hence the unfortunate accident).

My first love, Freddie Mercury.  It’s one of my fave videos…something about the cross dressing.  I loved the boobs and the mustache.

Now, not what you think this is, but I loved it just the same:

271 Days: GO VOTE! GO OBAMA!

It’s here!  It’s finally here!  Let’s make it a good one, America!

I’m so excited, and today I really feel homesick.  Nobody really gets it here.  Or else, I don’t have too many American friends.  And some Americans I know here are Republicans.

I have nowhere to go tonight yet.  I don’t know where (a bar, a club?) will have good coverage.  I don’t know which place will have a nice crowd of folks like me.  I really want to be out among friends tonight, and it’s really hitting me how few strong, interesting, intelligent, very liberal, American people I know around here.  Oh pooh, at times like this, I just miss Chicago.  The 2000 election.   I miss Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap, and renting a giant donkey costume, and going to the Gore rally, and feeling optimism and hope–old style, like Clinton could never lose, and who on earth didn’t just love him, and the Reynolds Club on election night, the entire student body screaming at the TV, and running back and forth between the theater lounge where we had internet and the cafe where the TVs were set up.  I miss paad thai and The West Wing and confidence and beautiful possible future.  Before the ground caved in beneath us.

So, if anyone knows where there’s a good place to hang out in Tel Aviv tonight, please let me know.

And all youse guys in America – GO VOTE!  NOW!  Because who knows how long you’ll have to wait in line!  And remember to not leave until you’ve voted!  No matter what they say.  And as we say in Chicago, “Vote early, vote often.”

Go get ‘em, tigers.  We’ve got an election to win.

295 Days: One Year in Israel

Jerusalem Light

Today is my one-year anniversary.  I have been living in Israel for one year.  It’s hard to believe.  I still feel like a hermit.  I still feel green, new, clueless.  And I don’t feel like I have any more courage, ingenuity, spirit, pride, or anything more than when I got here.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I’ve had therapy.  Lots of therapy.  And drugs.  And I’ve published something.  Something small, yes.  But something that has gotten amazing feedback.  And I graduated from culinary school.  So, besides the job issues that never cease, and never will cease, as making a living has to be done, anywhere in the world, something was accomplished this year.  Another certificate.  More experience.  Some emotional progress.  Yet, a great deal of treading water, treading on known, old, not-so-healthy paths.  But there is light.  There is light.  It’s an interesting feeling knowing that we never really grow out of childhood.  I will always be stuck at 16.  In many ways.  We are all adolescents.  Faking it.

I thought I would have a party.  Instead I’m alone at home.  Not altogether bad.  Trying to plot the next few turns, make the next plans, straighten myself out.  Alas, major exhaustion from Yom Kippur yesterday, and continued recovery from the 2-week Irish visitation, has gotten me plonked down in front of youtube and the like, watching Star Trek Voyager.  I am thinking of going out and getting some expensive beer.  Then again, I really really need to stop spending money.  I have less in my account than I thought.  And that’s not good.  But it is an important day.  Will two Belgian beers and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s really set me back all that much in comparison to the enjoyment it will all bring?  Yes, it’s worth it.  But in the end, it really is more of an issue of getting up and out of the chair (at least it’s a chair and not a sofa or bed).  As it’s Shabbat, I will have to trek 20 minutes to the local AM:PM, the only shop that’s open around here.  Gotta love Israel.  It is nice, though, to have a real palpable feeling of “otherness” for the weekend.  It’s much more quiet, relaxed, even though it’s inconvenient not having buses or shops or stores or restaurants open locally.

The cats are back.  They were at my sister’s for the duration of the Irish visit.  Not sure I’m glad, as they are a royal pain.  The company is OK some of the time.

Another year.  Appropriate it came right after Yom Kippur.  After the gates of heaven slammed shut for another year.  Another chance.  I didn’t really pray.  Even though I was in synagogue a good deal yesterday.  Even though I fasted.  I am not sure I believe in prayer.  I didn’t feel too spiritual.  I felt good, actually.  Felt calm.  Sleepy.  Adult.  Slightly nostalgic, but not in a negative, wish-I-were-back-there, kind of way.  I awoke on the morning of Yom Kippur having had a very goo night’s sleep.  I was in Jerusalem staying with a very good friend of mine, a woman I feel more at home with than almost anyone in my family.  She had laid a matress for me on her living room floor and given me perhaps the most comfortable comforter to sleep with.  I remember waking several times during the night wondering why it wasn’t yet morning and time to go to services.  And when I finally woke for the real morning, the memory of my family’s last vacation to Hawaii was on my mind.  It was one of the best trips we’d ever taken.  All of us adult.  All of us more or less getting along.  We were on Kauai where my parents have a time share, a place we’d been several times before.  And the vacation was spent on calm beaches, fun small restaurants, cooking meals together in the kitchen, and playing Scrabble.  Lots of Scrabble.  And mostly me winning, as is the case in my family.  It was a good time.  And even though the fast was not easy for me this year, I took a nap after we broke the fast on my friends sofa, with that wonderful comforter, and I felt safe.  A safety I feel with very few people.  A safety I rarely if ever feel with my immediate family.  A safety I feel when I’m with people I know will take care of me and always welcome me with open arms, no questions asked, no guilt piled on, no judgment doled out.  It was only for 20 minutes or so, but I will remember it for a long time.

I am thankful to her from the core of my being for creating safe, warm, loving spaces in this often cold and confusing world. It’s rare for me to feel comfortable on anyone else’s sofas.  There are perhaps three I can think of.  So, thank you to the Queen with the most comfortable Jerusalem sofa and comforter.

And will there be another year?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  Time will tell, all too well.

Star Trek Voyager