Great. Now two little Iranian girls told me my name is ugly. I said in Hebrew, "I apologize...but that's my name."

Great though. As if I needed another thing to be upset about, apparently my name is ugly.

Just dawned on me that the nightmare I had a few weeks ago about being put in the "Retard Battalion" might actually come true.....

eff....just eff...

my parents are going to be so pissed with me

so i found out today that on sunday i have to go to like this 7 hour test thing to get an army placement. i have no idea what this is, and i cant seem to get a straight answer out of anyone. someone told me it's for borderline retarded people, then someone else told me that it's a GOOD thing, and then someone else told me that all the girls have to do it. im really scared and im trying to read as much as i can about it online.
im terrified because i'm going to be in a large group of native hebrew speakers. there's a lot of group work and discussions and reading and stuff like that, and i'm just terrified. from what i can understand from the hebrew website, i apparently at one point am going to have to read something in hebrew and then talk about it in hebrew....and all the while the interviewer is going to try to distract me with questions.
i feel comfortable in class, where everyone is foreign, and i feel comfortable reading and speaking hebrew without pressure....but i'm so afraid of this thing where i'm going to be the stupid immgirant who doesn't understand what's going on, and I'll be begging for 17 year old Israeli girls to help me.

i'm going to look like a total idiot.
Unless, of course, this test thing is only for retarded israelis, in which case i might actually have a chance at keeping up.

But oh god though...

...oh god....am i retarded? is that why i'm being sent to this thing?

The Balloon Battalion

Was watching "Rome" and heard the most enchanting line. Caesar says this to his wife, who has just woken from a terrible dream:
“I was about to wake you…wherever you were, you were not enjoying yourself.”
Sounds like something I should say to my roommate when she's screaming in her sleep



Today we were talking about the IDF’s surveillance balloons over the Gaza Strip that were recently replaced by an apparently inferior system. Of course the idea of an observation balloon made me think of World War I, and I imagined German men with pointy helmets standing on zeppelins overlooking the Gaza Strip. Or maybe man with a ridiculously high top hat and a monocle would be drinking a glass of wine from a flamboyantly-colored hot air balloon type thing floating over the Gaza Strip. “What an awesome army we would have,” I thought to myself, combining this idea with my idea of starting a Robin Hood Battalion.

We got to talking about possible reasons why the IDF replaced their observation balloons, and one guy offered, “Maybe it got to be too dangerous…cos they’re easy to see and if you shoot them down then the soldier dies or gets captured.”

This statement is the epitome of an “Ulpan Moment.”

An “Ulpan Moment” is at least a daily occurrence here in government-provided Hebrew lessons. It’s when someone makes a statement in Hebrew that is entirely incomprehensible because of bad Hebrew, or is confusing because of bizarre idioms that don’t translate well from the speaker’s native language (in which case fellow native speakers will nod their heads in complete agreement), or (in this case) when someone makes a completely ridiculous statement in Hebrew, so ridiculous that everyone else shrugs off the statement thinking that they simply didn’t understand what was said.
An “Ulpan Moment” consists of one such statement, followed by an awkward pause in the class discussion as everyone tries to figure out how to understand what was said, followed by the teacher trying to move things along by saying, “Eeehhhhh…b’seeeeeder…..” (In American: “Uh…okayyyyy….”)

I got really excited because I kind of assumed that as much as I wanted the IDF to have a badass hot air balloon unit, I figured that no smart army would put 19 year old Israelis on a hot air balloon over the Gaza Strip. But now maybe there was hope? So I asked the teacher, “Wait, there are people on the balloons?!”

The teacher’s response was “Mah pitom?!” which (for those of you who don’t speak Hebrew) translates to “What suddenly?” It’s one of those phrases that I understand how to use, but which I can’t understand WHY you would ever think to say it. What do “What” and “Suddenly” have to do with this situation?

Anyway, I asked if my fellow student was correct in suggesting that they actually put people on these balloons over the Gaza Strip. And it was at that point that she actually registered what was said, and her face just completely crumpled in laughter. She pointed at me and another student who is going to the army soon and advised us to join the balloon unit/battalion/whatever when we join the army so that we can go for balloon rides over the Gaza Strip. Then someone suggested that there was a special paratroopers unit that jumped off these hot air balloons rather than airplanes, and everyone was just dying with laughter. But I guess you kind of had to be there…

Okay, so I got back from an errand in the center of town, and now suddenly my roommate is in a good mood and is thanking me for cleaning up the whole apartment. Which I appreciate, but I'm also kind of pissed off because the apartment was just as sparkly a couple hours ago, yet she was a total bitch then. I'm not really sure how I feel at the moment...

You know what I wish? I wish I had my oldest brother's talent. He could fart at will. If someone (usually my mother) was whining at him to do something, for a moment he would put on a look of concern, then would rip a loud fart, and say, "Don't care." I wish I could do that whenever certain people talk to me....


Um, oh my g-d, some Russian guy just gave me this attempt at a seductive glance and then winked. GAAAAA!!!!!

okay, slightly pissed off because i spent the last two/three months trying very hard to forgive my roommate for her night screaming, her moodiness, her thoughtlessness (talking on her phone when I'm in bed trying to sleep), not replacing things like toilet paper when she's used the last bit, her blasting her DVDs on her computer when I'm in the room trying to study, and her insistence on smoking in the room even though I told her I have lung/blood problems, etc etc..... I said to myself, You know self, you probably piss her off with various things you do, so just try to forgive her for her faults and in return she'll forgive your faults.

turns out she was NOT forgiving my faults all this time. turns out that since pretty much day one she's been bitching to the "House Mother" about various things she hates about me. Which, I'm not going to lie, makes me feel very betrayed. I don't like that there is a fat Russian woman who knows about all of my problems.

so now ive been giving the option of switching rooms. which i think i will. but im just very upset about the whole thing. never in my life have i had a serious problem with a roommate. I think I've had something like 6, and even more if you count various sleep away camps. my policy has always been, "well, i'll forgive her for her failure to clean out the fridge of some really nasty old food she left in there, if she'll forgive me for not opening up the bathroom window after taking a shower to let the steam out." I've had some weird roommates in the past, but this....this is different.

also, can i just say that i spent a large part of my weekend cleaning out our room? i knew that she didn't like my disorder, so i decided to have a nice surprise for her when she came back from her weekly outingi really made an effort to clean up my stuff and sweep up the floor, and scrub the toilet until it sparkled, and washed the bathroom floor, and organized the kitchen and took out all the trash and etc etc..... and she comes back from the weekend and doesn't even say anything. she just glares at me angrily. i didn't fucking do anything wrong! which i think just makes her a bitch.

ISRAEL VS GREECE TONIGHT!

WOOOOOORD!



9.03-- Just saw the empty reserved seat for Gilad Shalit and my heart just broke a little bit.

9.04-- We're both blue and white...who the hell is who??

9.06-- still have no idea which color we are and am too embarrassed to ask the Russians I'm surrounded by. Tried looking at players' appearances for clues, but apparently everyone looks Mediterranean.

9.07-- WE'RE BLUE.

9.09-- I just got really depressed because I realized that even if Israel does make it to the World Cup 2010 (this game is a qualifier), I won't be able to go to South Africa as I had planned (college graduation trip) because I'll be in the army.

9.13-- Apparently one of the player's name is something like "Dudu" followed by some last name that sounded like "Wawa" or some crazy shit like that. I started laughing, and this guy says to me in Hebrew, "What's funny?" And I said that the name "Dudu" is funny, and he said, "No it's not."

Oh yes it is!!!

(Also, I'm five years old.)

9.27-- Dear Residents of this building: I hope you're comfortable standing outside the gates in the cold, because the guard is sitting in this room watching TV and is ignoring your buzzing to be let in.

9.58-- Halftime. There's a commercial with people just singing the letter "Y." How do I know it's "Y" and not "Why?" ? Because there are subtitles.
Also, the best part about the goal that Greece scored? Every single immigrant in the room (that's everyone in the room!) screamed the equivalent of "Ah hell no!" or "Shit!" or "Noooo!" in their native tongue.

10.16-- GOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!
the guy who scored put his hand up gesturing "One!" Does that mean that's his first goal? Or that Israel is number one? Or that G-d is one?
(The other day I was wearing a shirt that said "ONE" on the front, and the N looked a bit like an alef. And some American religious tourist asked me if it was a reference to the Shema, and I didn't have the heart to tell them that it was actually just a promotional t-shirt for my university's football program.)

10.22-- Just dawned on me that I can read newspapers in Hebrew and know some pretty high and mighty words and grammar...but I have no fucking clue what the people in the stands are chanting in Hebrew. "Israel...SOMETHING!" but the something is one syllable. is that it?

10.37-- Someone's down. I believe it's Yossi Benayoun. Oh fuck, they're bringing out the stretcher? Where is that magic spray that you always see at sporting games? You know, where there's a guy writhing in agny on the field and then the medical team runs out, sprays the guy (usually in the groin area), and then the guy magically recovers? Ahhhh fuck, he's now off the field in a stretcher.

10.47-- Sometimes I really don't understand this country. I don't understand how we can win a goddamn war in 6 days, yet we have trouble winning soccer game.

10.54-- Have you ever noticed how soccer resembles ping pong? Not as much as basketball, but....yeah....

10.55-- Annnnnd....it's over. That's it. 1-1. Real fucking exciting.

Whine Whine Whine

Mopey Reflections from Last Night


Last night I ended up pacing my room for a solid hour wondering if I’m normal. My conclusion? No.

You know what life feels like? Maybe this will be a weird metaphor, but stay with me.

Life feels like my oldest brother’s Bar Mitzvah party.

I remember being 8 years old, in some uncomfortable party dress, in some uncomfortable fancy hair-do that keeps pulling at my scalp, without my glasses, wearing wearing-inducing tights, surrounded by old and strange-smelling relatives that I’ve never met who keep trying to hug me but can’t remember my name….and then when I feel like I can’t get any more uncomfortable, all the adults start doing The Electric Slide, which I had never even heard of before, and they all try to drag me into it.

Basically what I’m saying is that my life on a regular basis feels like that experience all those years ago, that experience of feeling so uncomfortable and out of place and foreign and frightened of people that you just want to go lock yourself in your room and hide underneath your bed.

You’ll notice that in the last paragraph I used the word “foreign.” I feel like I have to clarify that this foreignness has absolutely nothing to do with being an immigrant. Let me make this absolutely clear: Yes, I feel like a foreigner in Israel, but I also feel like a foreigner in the neighborhood of Los Angeles that I lived in full-time from birth until I was 18. It has nothing to do with nationality or religion or whatever. I’m just a weirdo.

Also, I feel like the Phantom of the Opera. In two senses. In one sense, I feel like some masked loner/weirdo. And in another sense, I feel like the production itself of “The Phantom of the Opera”—overly-dramatic, obnoxious, and embarrassingly bad.

Oh G-d. It just dawned on me that it’s Friday evening and instead hanging around after Shabbos dinner to socialize with people, I actually chose to come upstairs to my room to listen to show tunes by myself. As I write this, I am listening to the score of South Pacific.
Oh G-d, I’m embarrassed by what a dweeb I am.



I’m thinking of just no longer opening my mouth around people because every single time I get a reaction from someone on something I’ve said (except when it’s just a straightforward exchange of information) it just makes me feel more alienated.

Jews In Space

First of all, let me say that it’s so cold that I’m considering snuggling up to my computer for warmth.

Okay, moving on.

Well folks, Passover is approaching here in Israel. And everywhere in the world, for that matter. Already the supermarkets have removed the normal cereal from their shelves and have replaced it with kosher for Passover products. Yesterday I tried to get Cheerios since I was out, and instead found that all the boxes of cereal had simply vanished. At first it didn’t dawn on me that this was because of Passover, so I had this very sad and desperate search through the supermarket thinking that some kind of horrible trick was being played on me. And today….I can’t even say it……today….

….today I didn’t have breakfast.

As I’ve mentioned on this blog, I consider breakfast to be not only the most important part of my day, but my favorite part. I used to lecture my Australian roommate on why she needs to eat breakfast. When I (G-d willing!) have children of my own (All named Hank Avi Rumpelstiltskin III), family dinner will be optional, but family breakfast will be compulsory. This is just how I feel about breakfast.

Anyway, so today I walked up to a mini market to see if they had Cheerios. I was thrilled to find that they have cereal in general, though not Cheerios. But then I saw the words “KOSHER FOR PASSOVER!” on the boxes in Hebrew, which made me think, “What the hell is kosher for Passover cereal?” Is that like matza crumbs that you put in a bowl of milk?

So I ended up getting this piece of shit cereal and walking back to the apartment. In the apartment I’m confronted by my roommate who starts talking about how we have to get rid of all our bread products and how we have to sell xyz to Christians over Passover and blablablah halakha. She pointed to my newly purchased box of kosher for Passover cereal and said I had to finish it before Passover or we would have to sell it. Knowing how much I like cereal, that shouldn’t be a problem. Actually, making it last through the weekend is a more likely problem. But anyway, I said, “Oh no, don’t worry, it’s kosher for Passover,” pointing at the label on the box. She then said that because it was open before Passover when we still have bread in the house, it was now NOT kosher for Passover so we can’t have it in the house during Passover.

I don’t know…times like this, I feel like how I imagine my dad must feel all the time, who since 1980 (when my parents married) has been living among people of a bizarre and different religion, and he has to keep a straight face and pretend that it’s not all a load of total bullshit.

Obviously though I don’t want my roommate to feel like she’s breaking any religious rules, and I don’t want her to be ill at ease in our apartment, so obviously I’ll cooperate to the best of my ability.

All lot of this though is, unfortunately, a foreign topic for me. The idea of selling or burning hametz was completely unknown to me until I got to college. In my family, if we felt like keeping Passover that year, we simply didn’t eat the cereal in the pantry. It never occurred to us to sell it or get rid of it, which would be a ridiculous waste of time. My family is a pretty logical and practical family, so our response to someone telling us that we HAVE to sell our non-kosher cereal (as my Jewish brother will probably do this year…) because we can’t eat bread products over Passover would be something like, “How come we can’t just…oh, I don’t know…not eat it?”


And of course, we didn’t always avoid bread on Passover. And during the random years that we kept Passover, I clearly remember eating a ham and cheese sandwich on matza, so obviously you can see how Jewish my family is…

Sometimes though when I hear about Jewish law and about how one lives Jewishly, I feel almost like how I felt when I went to Catholic mass on Christmas Eve in downtown LA, which can only be described as like watching particularly amusing and bizarrely-dressed extraterrestrials moving a large candle around a table. Except when it’s Jewish law instead of a Catholic mass, there’s no Christmas music and it’s a bit like if at the end the extraterrestrials were to tell you that you’re one of them.



Sigh….this is the part where, if I were at home, my dad and I would shake our heads and exchange knowing looks, and he’d sing (either loudly or under his breath, depending on the situation), “TRADITIOOOOOOOON!”



.....

draft evasion and relatives and more

Well, finally. I finally have a piece of paper from the army that says, “You’ll be one of us come this July.”

Okay, so the letter was a little more official sounding than that.

To put it mildly, I’m pretty fucking excited. Only 4 more months of having to pay for bus fare, bitches!

I also though have to admit that now I know I’m going to have issues with certain patriotic family members (not immediate family), or certain friends with anti-Zionist tendencies…and it’s kind of upsetting. Also I think of all the “American Appreciation Day” concerts we did in elementary school, and I imagine my kindergarten teacher grabbing my red, white and blue-clad kindergarten self and yelling, “ARE THE SONGS YOU ARE SINGING AT AGE FIVE ALL LIES???” I can imagine an angry Toby Keith writing a song about me, or someone else like me who is joining a foreign army, and the song would be more aggressive than his post-9/11 “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue.”

Also, at some point in the army induction process I believe there is some kind of loyalty-swearing ceremony…and it’ll be weird to pledge loyalty to a country other than the US after going to an elementary school that had us regularly recite the Pledge of Allegiance. My Christian grandparents, both of whom worked for the US government in some sort of security role, would probably be appalled.

But again, let me emphasize that I’m excited. I’m happy that I’m going to be in a Jewish army—what a foreign notion! This is genuinely something I WANT to do. All I’m saying is that I know it’s going to permanently complicate my relationship with the U.S, or maybe just complicate how some people in the US will perceive my relationship with it.

On a completely positive note….I am so looking forward to putting in an alumni note the next time my high school prints the alumni magazine. Most people from my year will put in something like, “This year Amy graduated with honors from Extremely Difficult College A YEAR EARLY!” or “Charles is having a great time at University of Prestige and hopes to apply to law school.” Or “Kathleen is currently spending a year abroad in Canada, having a great time!!!”

And then they’ll put in my name. “This year Sam dropped out of college (for the second time), acquired foreign citizenship, became proficient in a foreign language, and got drafted into a foreign army. Sure, she may have been the nerd playing around with theater lights back in high school, but nowadays she walks around Jerusalem with an assault rifle and can kick any football player’s ass.”

(Okay, so the chances of me ever carrying an assault rifle around town and being able to kick anyone’s ass are extremely slim…but a girl can dream/exaggerate, can’t she?)

After writing what you’ve already read, I’ve received a facebook wall post from an older relative. I’m not really sure what people older than my parents are doing on facebook (and actually can’t even imagine what my parents would be doing on facebook), but that’s a whole ‘nother story. Anyway, this person who does not know me very well at all, maybe sees me twice a year, had the nerve to comment negatively on my upcoming draft, and she encouraged me to try to get out of it. She has no problem with me staying in Israel, but just doesn’t agree with the army commitment.

Which kind of disgusts me. Trying to argue my way out of getting drafted strikes me as kind of…elitist. That somehow mandatory army enlistment is fitting for everyone else except for me, that I’m too good for it. What’s especially frustrating is that this person is so liberal, constantly ranting against what she perceives as elitism, and yet here she is suggesting that I do something extremely elitist. Her argument is that I’m a “free-thinker” or whatever, and that it’ll be tough for me to be in an environment where I’m constantly told what to do. Therefore I should try to weasel my way out of getting drafted. She’s right, I don’t like being told what to do.

But does ANYONE in Israel like being told what to do? And for that matter, does anyone in the world like being told what to do? Am I somehow more of a rebel/free-thinker than every single person who has ever served in the IDF that I should argue to be exempted from service because of my “unique” preference to do what I please?


Yeah, I’m excited about the army because I’ll improve in Hebrew and I’ll (hopefully!) make friends, and do something kind of weird/different with my life, but all that stuff aside, I feel like I HAVE to do the army just so I can look at myself in the mirror…..I don’t know if I could feel comfortable living in a country where almost EVERYONE else had to do the army for two/three years, whereas I waltzed in and bitched my way out of it. Especially since the state gives new immigrants like me so much.

See, I see the army as kind of a bizarre form of tax. It’s a necessary price Jews in Israel have to pay for living in a protected Jewish State, only this tax is paid in time rather than money. So for me to say that I don’t want to do the army is kind of like saying, “I don’t want to pay taxes, but I still want to reap all the benefits of taxes. So I’ll just let everyone else pay taxes.”

And, well, frankly only a total shithead would do that.

I AM OFFICIALLY DRAFTED! I AM GOING IN IN JULY! HOLY CRAP!

more updates to follow...busy week.

holy fuck. never gonna trash talk anyone on a bus ever again. lesson learned, G-d, thanks.

BREAKING NEWS:

No more blood tests. Got a health profile. No problems. YES! Receiving enlistment date in about 2 weeks.

The one in which my blood pressure goes through the roof

A few months ago on this blog I wrote about a girl down the hall from me back at school screaming bloody murder alone in her room for an extended period of time. It was finals week and apparently the stress was a little too much for this girl to handle. Eventually the police were called and the girl was dragged off to an ambulance, and from there to psychological evaluations in a hospital.

Right now I identify 100 percent with that girl.

Now the army is telling me that I haven’t done my general doctor’s examination. Which I actually did back in August/July. In fact, last Monday when I turned in my blood test results I actually SAW in the hands of one of the soldiers the notes from that examination. But now apparently I haven’t done it.

I tried arguing with the girl on the phone that I had done it, and she just kept saying that according to the computer or my file or whatever that I had NOT done it. She was like, “Well obviously you HAVEN’T done it!” I really disliked her tone, which suggested that she couldn’t believe I was so stupid, so mistaken, that I could possibly think that I had undergone an examination when the computer said I hadn’t.

Look, I’m no computer, but I have a clear memory of sitting in my underpants in the medical exam room, and I remember carrying a cup of pee through a crowded building, and I remember getting a blood test in the army enlistment center. I’ve looked through the eye thing at the little farmhouse, and I’ve handed a fat Russian woman a doctor’s form. I wish I could tell the computer that…

I wanted to reach through the phone and throttle her, and yell, “WELL OBVIOUSLY YOUR FUCKING COMPUTER IS MISTAKEN, YOU RANCID BITCH!” But I didn’t. Not because of concerns of politeness, but rather because technology is not yet advanced enough to allow hands to go through the receiver to throttle the person on the other end of the line. So instead I just sort of pathetically pleaded that I had in fact already done the test. It actually got to the point where I was so frustrated that I couldn’t stop myself from reverting to my Los Angeles-born/bred self and ended up spewing out Hebrew mixed with “like”s instead of saying “Uh” or “Um” when thinking. “Aval ani like cvar asiti et col ha…like….bdikot! Zeh like mamash mtaskel!”

When I hung up the phone….I can’t even describe my frustration. I don’t even know if frustration would be the correct word. It was sort of an unholy combination of frustration, sadness, anger, fear, confusion, and indignation. Unfortunately, I don’t think English has a concise word for that emotion. All I know is, apparently the army got sick of finding new frustrating things for me to do, so they decided that having me re-do EVERYTHING would work just as well.

Whatever this emotion was, it made me sit on the floor crying like a baby…but an angry baby. A baby that had had enough and wanted to break things. I seriously just want to let loose a primeval scream, so loud that even the Jordanians will get shivers down their spines.

I then decided that I was so sick of people and dealing with their bureaucracies that I was simply going to run off into the mountains and live as a hermit.

Eventually I pulled myself together and remembered that the woman who came to speak to us in the absorption center about the army said that we should feel free to call her. She said she’d prefer that we try to deal with things directly with the army enlistment center hotline, but she said that if we ran into major problems that we should call her. And, well, I figured that being told test-by-test that I have to do everything over again was a sufficient reason to call her. So I did, and it turns out she’s out for a while, but someone else on the line said that I did NOT have to do the doctor exam over again…..

Which is reassuring, because now I don’t have to re-do things, but which kind of concerns me because I’m wondering how I can call two different people within the same hour and be told the exact opposite from each.

The nice girl on the other end of the line said she’d figure out what the problem is for me and then call me back. Hopefully she’s being honest….As of right now, I haven’t gotten a call back, but I only called 30 minutes ago. I’m still hopeful.

I was hoping to enlist immediately after ulpan, but now I’m concerned I won’t be in uniform even before the turn of the next century. I have a feeling that Moshiach will come before I enlist, and that Jesus has a better chance of coming back for Round 2 than I do of ever starting my army service.

I’m reluctant to start saying to myself, “Oh, this would never happen back in the U.S.”

But, let’s face it: it wouldn’t.

Any American friend I’ve related my saga to has said something to the effect of, “That would NEVER happen in the US Army! Basically all you have to do there is sign your name and you’re off to Iraq.” One American friend likened the difficulty of getting sent to Iraq by the US Army to that of sneezing. It is, however, completely optional as there is no draft in the US (at the moment).

Yet somehow with the Israeli army….they tell me I MUST serve for 2 years, but then they make me spend like 5 years simply finishing the fucking paperwork to get in. Which, in my opinion, is quite possibly the rudest thing you can do to someone. Why? Because meanwhile I can’t go back to school in Israel and can’t really do anything productive, because I’m constantly in a state of waiting for the fucking army. It’s just a rude fucking waste of my life. If you’re going to tell me that I HAVE to do the army for 2 years, which means that I can’t do anything important or long-term in Israel until after I finish those two years, could you please stop losing my forms/results/etc and just let me join ASAP?

Fucking hell…

Okay, so the woman called me back. Turns out I have to do 10 Blood Pressure Tests. Which no one told me about. Okay, whatever. I asked her, “Is this the LAST thing I have to do?” And she said that as long as there wasn’t something horribly wrong with my blood pressure that this would be the last thing. I hope she’s right.

This is really frustrating. My whole life, one of the few things that has NOT been a problem with my blood was blood pressure. Sure, I may have extra shit floating around in my blood that shouldn’t be there, but blood pressure? That’s maybe the one normal thing about me.

Who knows though…after all this shit from the army maybe now I have really high blood pressure. Every single time I interact with the army enlistment center I feel like an aneurysm waiting to happen.

I can also imagine the conversation when I go into my health clinic tomorrow and ask to do 10 blood pressure tests (I have to go on 10 separate occasions), without a form from the army, and they’ll tell me something like, “You don’t have a form? What, you think you can just walk in here and do whatever blood pressure tests you want?”

At which point my blood pressure will spike as I scream, “JUST DO ME A GODDAMN FAVOR, YOU BUREAUCRATIC SHITBAGS!”

Just in case, I’ve made a playlist on my iTunes called “Blood Pressure.” I plan to listen to it every morning when I go get my blood pressure tested, and it will consist entirely of calming country music, slow Christian rock, acoustic classics, Enya, and also pretty much anything popular with stoners.

Hearing that I just had to do blood pressure tests made me cry. Because it’s something so fucking simple (except it takes 10 days at least), yet the millions of times I’ve called the army center in the past couple weeks, none of them told me to do it. It’s just been sort of a shit couple weeks in general, as I’ve also been upset about something totally unrelated, and so I guess adding everything up made me cry.

Oh fuck it, my roommate just came in and made some comment about the mess on my corner of the room. She doesn’t tell me to clean it up, but she says something about how it must bother ME and how it must be difficult for ME to live like that for 5 months. She says it with this sort of false air of concern for me. Bitch please, compared to how I live when I’m in a room of my own, this is NOTHING. Plus, I hate this tactic. If it bothers her, which I’m guessing it does, she should say so. I don’t like her telling me what bothers me. I know what bothers me, not her. And you know what? Mess doesn’t bother me. And secondly, it’s my fucking corner of the room, the one corner she hasn’t taken over with her own shit, and I feel that I should get to do whatever I like with it. I am, however, extremely neat in the kitchen and bathroom, which are 100 percent shared.

Normally I make some sort of apology and immediately jump up and at least make a show of sort of moving things around. Today I guess she expected the same of me…but today I didn’t really feel like making a show of trying to appease her. She waited in the doorway for me to jump up and do as I normally do, with this bossy and kind of nasty expression on her face, but after spending the last 30 minutes crying—and my roommate can see that my eyes are still red and puffy—I didn’t really feel like obliging anybody but myself, so I sat. At my computer. Without taking off my headphones. And gave her the stink eye. She maintained her eye contact. But I maintained my stink eye. And she retreated! VICTORY!!!

Oh G-d did it feel good.

I will say that I love having a good laugh after crying. After pondering the idea of Mess, I tried to think of the messiest/least hygienic thing I’ve ever done in my life, the thought of which made me laugh hysterically at how appalled my roommate would be. The winning act? During high school my best friend and I both forgot to pack lunch and were quite hungry. So we wandered around campus until we came across a piece of cake that had been abandoned, thrown on the ground, and trampled upon. My friend and I just looked at each other, and then together without a word sat down to eat the cake off the floor. WINNER!

Dreams

I’ve been thinking a lot about all the things I’ve wanted to do with my life and wondering how I got to where I am now.

One of the earliest things I can remember wanting to be when I grew up was a dragon. I think the magical thing about being 3 or 4 is that you have no concept of what is or is not possible. How many little kids say things like, “When I grow up I’m going to be a butterfly!” and expect it to happen? A lot.

For a couple years my dreams took a slightly more realistic turn. When I was 5 I decided I was going to be a taxi driver so I could meet a bunch of people, and when I was 6 and we got our dog I decided I was going to be a dog trainer. I tried practicing on our dog, but it turns out that I’m total shit at getting dogs to behave. When I was 8 and we started writing long stories in school, I decided I wanted to be an author, and that I was going to make millions writing children’s fiction about hamsters.

Sadly, these are the dreams in my life that have been “practical.” Unfortunately, my dreams of what I’ll do with my life seem to keep getting more ridiculous as I grow up.

At age 10 we learned about the Civil War in school, and I decided that I was going to be a Civil War historian/re-enactor. Actually, I didn’t want to be either—the truth was that I wanted to LIVE during the Civil War, but I guess the microscopically small practical part of my personality realized that this would be as close as I could get. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to have anything to do with the gory battles, but rather I had fallen in love with the Union uniforms and liked “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” (Actually, I still do.)

When I was 11 I started making movies with friends about fake/ridiculous news stories, and then I also decided that in order to be a good filmmaker (my new dream) I had to be French. Somehow, I was going to be the first Professional French Person. I taught myself extremely basic French and then would go to the park and talk to random kids in what little French I knew, pretending that I didn’t understand English. One girl my age became very upset and asked her mother to find out if I really was French. So the mother asked me in French, “How are you?” And I responded in grammatically perfect French, “Very well, thank you. And how are you this evening?” And I heard the mother say to her daughter, “Yes, she’s French.”

Maybe the proudest moment of my life.

At age 12 we started learning Latin in school, at which point I decided that I was going to be a Latin scholar at Oxford University for the rest of my life. My parents asked me why Oxford, why not Cambridge? And I would go on this whole tirade about how Oxford is superior, when in fact the reason I preferred Oxford to Cambridge was that Michael Palin is an alumnus of Oxford whereas John Cleese is an alumnus of Cambridge. At this point I knew only extremely basic Latin, only a few words and such, so I would strut around my room repeating a sentence in Latin I had memorized from the beginning of our book, the first sentence we read in Latin. I would walk around my room as if I had a very serious matter to discuss, as if I were a very important person in a toga arguing something before the Roman Senate, and I would repeat constantly in Latin, “We are telling the story of Quintus Horatius Flaccus. Reader, pay attention and enjoy the story.”

At age 13 I decided I was going to become a Crusader when I left school. I wanted to learn sword fighting, I wanted a huge shield with a cross, etc etc. I wanted to find the Holy Grail, and I decided I was Anglican. It honestly never occurred to me that I was Jewish. I mean, I knew I was Jewish, but it didn’t occur to me that this was a contradiction. I was too set on deciding how to bring about the new Round Table, and how to achieve purity of heart/soul/whatever and all that shit. Part of me actually really misses this period in my life, because at this age the answer to every moral question seemed perfectly obvious. I miss how dedicated I was during this time to being a good person, and how being good didn’t seem as difficult as it seems now.

At 14 I became a vegetarian (and would be for the next 4 ½ years), and I decided that I was going to dedicate my life to opening a vegan bowling alley in a town called Bangor in Wales. It was going to be awesome. All vegan food, pleather bowling shoes, and totally awesome TV screens at the end of each lane—which has nothing to do with being vegan, but is cool all the same.

At 15, or maybe 16, I decided that I was going to lead the Welsh people in a revolt against the English. We’d restore Wales as an independent kingdom and revive the Welsh language. At 17 I wrote my high school senior thesis on why Wales should be independent, and I pasted things like the words to the Welsh national anthem on my wall, next to a copy of a poster that called from the Welsh people not to fight in England’s army. I taught myself just enough Welsh to write the title of my thesis in Welsh, in the infinitely small chance that it would be selected for binding and the principal would have to read the title in front of the entire school assembly.

In college, while on the run from accidental membership in three different Christian groups, I decided that I was going to open up a nightclub that played only European dance music, and the lighting would be awesome, and there’d be TV’s and HOLY FUCK IT’D BE SO COOL. And to top it off, I was going to start a Swedish pop group, the next ABBA.

And this isn’t even everything. I’ve also wanted to be a World War I flying ace, an expert on Tudor England, a bass player, a speaker of all world languages, a spy, a soccer player, a lighting designer, a soccer commentator, an army psychiatrist, an all cheese restaurant owner, a chef, a politician, a teacher, a Disneyland costumed employee, a historic costume designer, a Mexican, and Robin Hood.

And, well, I still want to do ALL of these things with my life, as well as a million other dreams. Maybe I should be embarrassed by what a ridiculous person all this makes me…but I’m not. I still want to be a Latin scholar, but I also want to make movies about Latin classics. I want to train dogs in French, and take back the Holy Land from the infidels (of which I am one!), and then have a toast to my success in my European nightclub. After a toast in the nightclub, I want to drive people in my taxi to my vegan bowling alley.

And, fuck it, I still want to be a dragon.

Reflections from yesterday on McDonald's, jobs, and the like

So today my roommate asked me if I still wasn’t working. When I said no, she pushed the issue. Granted, I’m pretty ashamed of myself for being so fucking lazy, and I’m embarrassed that in two months I’ve had time to watch almost every single movie in my rather large collection, and speaking practically I’m going to want some extra money soon because now that I actually have friends at this place I’m going to want to go out more than I have been. So yeah, her criticism of my not working is a valid criticism that I myself share. But I don’t see how the hell it’s any business of hers, and the only person besides myself who has the right to raise that sort of criticism is either my mother or father, because they raised me and have the right to make me feel ashamed of myself. No one else has that right, especially not someone I met two months ago. Grr, it totally pissed me off.

So then, totally pissed off, I went out into the world to look for a job. The problem is that I’m really really shy, and I feel awkward talking to people my age about jobs, so I have to walk around town until I find a “Help Wanted” (in Hebrew though, duh) sign paired with an old man behind the store counter. This really limits my options.

I ended up going into this touristy Judaica store. The nice old man asked me several questions, including what I did back in the states. I said I was a student, and he asked me what I studied. Which, for those of you who’ve kept track, is a difficult question to answer. Film? Languages? Theater? What the fuck DID I study? In the end I settled on theater because I figured that’s where I feel most like an expert. Lighting design, I explained to him, except I explained it using a bizarre construction in Hebrew since I couldn’t remember how to say “design.” I told him I worked a bit in this for pay back in the states (true story….and actually the ONLY paying job I’ve had in the states besides lemonade stands when I was little, which I don’t think really count when you’re an adult looking for a job in a Judaica store). I also figured that since theater is the only field I have actual work experience in and is the most out-going extroverted subject I’ve studied, I should go with that, even though I could also argue that I studied Judaism at school (though not officially).

The nice old man started on this whole speech about how the art of selling is very much like theater, and it’s all about putting on a face even when the going gets tough and all about presentation and blahblahblah. I smiled because I thought, “This is great! I don’t even have to make some lame explanation about how my theater experience is relevant to selling tchatchkes in downtown Jerusalem, because he’s doing it for me!”

But then he started saying though that, since I unfortunately didn’t have any selling experience, that the job was probably a no-go unless no one else came along or whatever.

Wait, so what was that whole speech he just made about??? There’s NO way I misunderstood what he was saying, I understood every single word! “I’m going to talk for 5 minutes about how your experiences are perfect for this job, and without taking a breath I’m going to end by saying that your experiences don’t fit this job.” Oh man, people are so weird.

So how, pray tell, does one acquire a job with no experience? Actually, I do have work experience. I have experience designing lights in small theaters, and I have experience babysitting/tutoring three Israeli girls and their brother in English. Does this count for anything?

Oh yeah, and I can fold towels like nobody else.


And in fairness, my dear roommate, I’ve actually been constantly on the look out for one job in particular. Maybe I should be ashamed of myself for this, but I’m not: every single week that I’ve been in Israel so far, I’ve walked by the McDonald’s closest to my apartment to see if they were looking for employees. And they’re not. And it breaks my heart. I seriously seriously seriously want to work at McDonald’s, because I bet employees get a discount on fries and McNuggets, and that would just make my life so wonderful. I want to be a nugget-based life form. I want to get so fat on Chicken McNuggets that my rickety Jewish Agency-provided bed snaps in half. When I cough, I want fries to come out. I want to inject ketchup and the admittedly nasty McDonald’s orange juice into my veins. I want to eat soft-serve until I vomit McFlurries, and eat Egg McMuffins like they’re Mentos. And maybe if you’re reading this you’ll think, “Wow, maybe you shouldn’t work in McDonald’s cos a fat bitch like you is gonna eat everything and there will be nothing left for the customers.” No, see, that’s just it. I want to spread the gospel. I want everyone to eat McDonald’s. I want tourists looking over maps and planning their adventures over a Big Mac. I want locals laughing about a fun night out as they eat the Filet-O-Fish or whatever. I want details of peace treaties hammered out over a large order of fries, and then in the end I want the peace treaties to fail because Hamas took the last fry and this pissed off everyone else. Yes. Yes. This is my vision for the world. In every country I’ve been to in the world, I’ve eaten at a McDonald’s there, and I consider this my contribution to McDonald’s quest for world domination. When I hear people say they hate McDonald’s for exactly this reason, for its “conquest,” I want to strangle them to silence the opposition.

After the t-shirt job didn’t work out, my dad gave me some advice: “Why don’t you look for a job in a place you’d be passionate about? Like a bookstore?”

Or maybe McDonald’s.

Well, if anyone from McDonald’s Israel is reading this…I’m your girl.

more army fun...

So I called the army place to clear up what the deal was.

First one guy said that I didn't turn in my blood test results. I was ready to flip out and scream, "I'VE NOW FAXED THEM TWICE AND TURNED THEM IN IN PERSON...HOW THE HELL DO YOU STILL NOT HAVE THEM? AND FOR THE RECORD, ACCORDING TO MY DOCTOR AND THESE TEST RESULTS, I

STILL

DON'T HAVE THE SERIOUS BLOOD CONDITION THAT Y'ALL THINK I HAVE, SO FOR THE LOVE OF G-D WILL YOU JUST LET ME JOIN YOUR FUCKING ARMY ALREADY???!"

But instead I just said calmly in Hebrew, trying to keep the edge out of my voice, "Could you please check again? I came to the enlistment center on Monday and turned them in."

He called up to the medical unit/section/whatever to check it out for me, and a couple minutes later he came back on the line and said no one was picking up.

Having been in that room several times, I can tell you why no one was picking up: because all the 18 year old soldiers are too busy fucking playing solitaire on their computers and blasting Eyal fucking Golan from their cell phones.

He said to call back in a half and hour to clear up whether or not I still needed to come in.

So half an hour later I called back and the person on the other line barked at me that I don't need to come in after all but that I have to wait. I'm not really sure what I'm waiting for.

urgh....I'm just tired. I just want them to tell me, "This is exactly what's going on, here's what you need to be doing, end of story." Instead I have to resort to calling several times, because each time I get a different answer, and I hate myself for it because I hate being pushy and bothering people, especially people who don't particularly want to but HAVE to be in an army for 2/3 years....

Purim Escapades.

FROM YESTERDAY

So during Purim it’s quite common for little kids to run around throwing these little things that make a banging noise. You get used to hearing the noise, and it’s obvious to you that the banging noise you hear is annoying but harmless. It sounds like two fingers snapping very loudly.

Today I wandered around the shuk to see if I could come up with a more interesting Purim costume, and holy fuck was it crowded. I mean, it’s always crowded, but today it was like a sea of people. I ended up wandering into one of the covered areas, and it was even more ridiculously crowded than the open place. And all of the sudden we hear a

BLAM!

Holy fuck. A deafening noise that sounded like a gunshot. A few people screamed, many people ducked, others instinctively grabbed hold of tables or counters, and I would wager that most people—including myself--had minor heart attacks.

For a couple seconds it seemed like the world had frozen, but then we realized it was just a particularly loud firecracker or cap or something, and then some men started yelling, “WHO DID THAT!??!?!?” Everyone was still shaking (mind you, it’s a terribly crowded area, already the victim of several terrorist attacks, a week after a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, and this week Jerusalem is on high alert because of Purim), and now that everyone realized they were not in danger, people were PISSED. Men kept calling out, “WHO DID THAT???!?” I can only hope for their sake that the culprits ran off very quickly, because the atmosphere in the marketplace was that of a lynch mob.

I understand it’s Purim, but what kind of misbehaving little shit sets off a firecracker in the middle of a crowded marketplace in the Middle East? Seriously….

(Note: Later on in the evening, on crowded streets like Ben Yehuda, where there were hundreds of people out for a party and it looked like a mass zombie take-over was occurring, there were pops and bangs and explosions all the time. This was not scary because it was constant since pretty much since the start of the evening. Early in the morning though, lighting a sudden firecracker in the middle of the marketplace when no other loud explosions are going on can be quite startling and it’s hard to remember that it’s Purim when it’s just one loud sudden explosion. Anyway……)


Anyway, my plan for Purim was to just get drunk and then drunk dial different government offices. Actually, this wasn’t much of a plan, more of a prediction.

I ended up going to a party at my absorption center. At the last minute I decided to dress as basically every woman in Jerusalem, so I dressed like an orthodox married woman. Everyone who knows me and knows that I’m quite secular and never caught in skirts thought this was very funny, and couldn’t believe that I even own a skirt. To people who knew me, it was OBVIOUSLY a costume.

What was really amusing though was when we left our building and went out into public. First we went to some Israeli house party, filled with Israelis my age who I’ve never seen before in my life, and then we went to this massive street party filled with even more Israelis I’ve never seen before on my life, and these Israelis were dancing on roofs and trucks. I think what I thoroughly enjoyed about my costume was that strangers we met along the way couldn’t tell whether or not it was in fact a costume, which is my favorite kind of costume. It was actually so much fun to be mistaken for something that I’m not that I’m considering dressing like an orthodox married woman just for the hell of it, just because it was interesting.

One friend of a friend who joined our group said (in Hebrew! YES!) as he pointed at my hair covering, “Are you married?” And I laughed and said, “No, it’s just a costume.” And he chuckled and said, “Oh, so the costume is that you’re married?” And I laughed and said, “No, the costume is that I’m RELIGIOUS and married.” At which point it totally blew this person’s mind that I wasn’t religious, and he almost didn’t believe me. “No way! No way! You’re religious!” Am I really such a convincing orthodox person? Hahaha, oh man, I love the power of a long skirt. And I also love the power of the realistic costume, as opposed to obvious devil ears or fairy wings or whatever that say, “WARNING: I AM NOT ACTUALLLY A DEVIL OR FAIRY.”

We tried to go to this bar in Jerusalem where there was an immigrant party…but I got stopped for being 20. I tried to do the “go on without me!” thing, but they all refused (what nice people I was with!), so we ended up walking for quite some time until we came to a massive street party, which I don’t think an immigrant party could have topped.

I don’t really think words can do justice to this party, so I’ll try to upload a quick video clip. (As of right now, it's ain't happening because the internet is too slow here)

Profile בבקשה

Today I had a thrilling moment where I dropped my cell phone on a bus and then out loud, without trying, muttered something in Hebrew like, “Now where did it disappear to?” Being able to just unconsciously spew out Hebrew as opposed to English was thrilling, especially when you consider that earlier in the bus ride I asked for a pass thusly: “ כרטיסיה please.” Followed by my smacking my head with my hand and saying, “Wait, shit!” I was focusing so hard on the word for the 10-ride bus pass, which I just recently figured out, that I simply forgot to say please in Hebrew rather than English…great.

So today I called the health clinic and all the test results were in, so I said that I’d come by in a few minutes to pick them up and take them to the army center myself. After a 20 minute hike up the mountain (I took the speedy but extremely steep route) I got to the clinic and told the receptionist I was here to pick up documents from the doctor. And the receptionist told me I had to wait in a line of like 5 sick people waiting to be examined. It was fucking ridiculous. I had to wait like 45 minutes just to pick up a fucking sheet of paper. I seriously sometimes do not understand this healthcare system.


P.S. How weird it is that the doctor is a woman and the receptionist is a man? What a country….
Also, when I called the other day to ask about my results, the receptionist asked me who took my blood. And the nurse who took my blood was male, so I didn’t want to call him the word for nurse in Hebrew, which literally means “sister.” So I referred to him as a “doctor.” Oh my G-d, did that not go over well with the receptionist. He sounded furious, and snapped at me, “He’s a ‘brother’ not a doctor!!!” Jesus Christ man, and you’re a psychopath not a receptionist, chill the fuck out….


Anyway, I took the forms to the army center, they took them, and the soldier told me that I should have my health profile in like two weeks. Fuck. NOW. I want now! About an hour and a half or so later I called the information line to ask when I would know my health profile, cos I figured if I’m as annoying as humanly possibly maybe things will go correctly, as opposed to my last few encounters with the army center in which I acted like a shy person who didn’t want to bother anybody and everything seemed to go horribly wrong and people forgot to tell me major things like the fact that I had to have a fucking BLOOD TEST. The soldier said something about how I’m going to get a “summons” or something in the mail, a word which I didn’t know exactly until I looked it up on my cell phone dictionary but which has the same root as “invitation.” …….but I don’t really know what that means…does that mean I have to go back to the army center again to do more tests? When the fuck will it end??? I asked the soldier if that meant that I had more tests that I had to do with the doctor, and she snapped at me, “I don’t know, you just have to wait!”

So wait I shall.

…until maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime, if any of my dear readers can confirm or deny that a “zimoon” is simply a letter the army sends you that says that you have to come to the army center to do something, that would be greatly appreciated. But I don’t expect either of you two to be able to confirm/deny. So I guess I’ll just wait and see.

Minarets are Charlie Brown Characters

Also, can we just talk about the fact that the voice coming out minarets sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher if she were singing?

WAW WAW WAAAAW WAAW......

Moses Montefiore: did you remember to put in public restrooms?

Today class was cancelled since our teacher was sick, so instead I decided to go for a nice walk while waiting to see if my health clinic received the last blood test (we had received 2/3, but were waiting on the third). After wandering around Ben Yehuda I ended up in the first Jewish homes built outside the walls of Jerusalem in the late 1800’s by Moses Montefiore. I remember we read about this in our first year Hebrew class. I had never actually seen it though until now, and I had a fun time finally seeing what our book described. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to REALLY enjoy it as I had to pee like a racehorse at that moment. I kept trying to desperately recall the paragraph in the book, thinking that that would somehow aid in finding a bathroom. No dice…..

Also during my walk I bumped into one of my former co-workers from the t-shirt store. It was terribly awkward. Mostly because I thought she was going in for a hug, which I was kind of pissed about because I hate hugging people I don’t know all that well, but it turns out she wasn’t, so it turned into this sort of awkward dangly thing. I wonder if I’m ever going to get used to the concept of constantly bumping into people I know or whether it’s going to continue to catch me off guard and make me panic about going out into public at all for the rest of my life in Israel.

It’s really creepy when you’ll be on the bus or something and you look out the window and you pass by someone you know who is walking on the street, and, mind you, you’re on the complete opposite side of Jerusalem from where you both live. And good luck if you skip class one day, because you’ll almost without fail bump into your teacher at the mall or bank or whatever later in the day after class is out—this has already happened to a couple of my classmates.

I’ve also noticed that I see strangers on the street at least twice. As I was told by some Germans, “You see everyone twice.” Well that never happened in LA because it has like the same amount of people as all of Israel, but here in Jerusalem? It’s like every morning I see someone and then several hours later in a different part of the city I see them again. And then there are the strangers I see constantly, like people on the bus who I recognize. Like the old man who always looks like he’s about to vomit, who rides the 9.20 am bus every morning. It’s a little frightening to feel like you know everybody.


Anyway, while I was out I saw there was a rally calling for the government to get back Gilad Shalit. They had people waving flags with his face on them, and people with t-shirts and signs and whatnot. There were banners everywhere saying that Gilad is still alive, and people about my age were handing out bumper stickers to passing cars. Apparently it was outside the Prime Minister’s residence or something, but I didn’t realize it at the time, I only just read about it online.

I don’t want to get all political or whatever on this blog, but I just want to say that issues like whether or not to swap Gilad Shalit for hundreds of terrorists make me feel like I am 100% NOT entitled to an opinion. Certainly I have an opinion, but whether or not my opinion is valid is a totally different thing. When this kind of argument comes up, I feel kind of like how I imagine an Israeli might feel if he were in the US around election times. An Israeli might express his opinion to an American friend, but ultimately the American friend doesn’t give a shit if the Israeli’s opinion differs from his own because ultimately it’s the American who is going to have to live with the consequences of the vote. The Israeli’s opinion is more or less meaningless. Here in Israeli I feel kind of like the opposite, but the same. I AM going to have to live with the consequences of what happens here, whether it’s elections or prisoner swaps or whatever, but the fact is that I didn’t live through what happened before. Who am I to tell the families of terror victims to get over the fact that their loved ones’ murders are going to be released to get one soldier back? I didn’t live through the intifadas, I didn’t lose any family members or friends, and apart from seeing images of it on the news it had absolutely no effect on my life. But at the same time, who am I to tell Gilad Shalit’s family and friends, or even Gilad Shalit himself, that he can just sit in some unknown prison for the rest of his life? I don’t have family or friends in the army, I have no way of possibly imagining one of my family members, like a brother serving in the army, in that situation, and I have nothing in my life to possibly bring that situation close to home. So I guess what I’m saying is that, in general, who am I to have an opinion on the matter? I feel kind of like my expressing an opinion on certain things going on in Israel is a bit like waltzing into a car dealership and immediately buying the shiniest car I see, before I do any research or test drive or whatever. Except an opinion is a million times more important.

I don't know. Just a thought.

Also, have decided that one day I'm going to walk from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv just to be able to say I've done it.

Check out my shun gun

So last night I ended up having a conversation with someone over what I found appealing about the Amish. I was actually too embarrassed to admit what I most like about the Amish, and instead the person talking to me assumed it had something to do with the simple lifestyle. But what do I actually love and admire about the Amish?

Shunning.
I love the concept. “You have done something so offensive in my eyes that I’m not even going to acknowledge your existence.”

“I HAVE NO SON!”

Granted, I could never live without my iTunes collection or DVD collection, or even my laptop simply for writing….but I love the idea of shunning. Just imagine. It’s like the biggest communal “fuck you!” I can possibly think of.




Can we also talk about the fact that yesterday it got REALLY hot? Yesterday I went for a stroll up near the UN base thing, and I was expecting it to be chilly and….Jesus, Mary and Joseph it was boiling. Can we talk about the fact that only a couple days ago I was wearing my North Face jacket that I used in Chicago winters, that our classroom was so cold that we shivered constantly?


So I’ve mentioned on this blog that one of my brothers has found religion. Actually, BOTH have found religion, but one has found Orthodox Judaism. Anyway, as I believe I mentioned on this blog a couple months ago, either over Thanksgiving or Christmas break he started telling me that I should be wearing a skirt at all times.

Anyway, I just remembered that a couple years ago, really not so long ago, we were going on a family walk one Saturday morning through the Orthodox neighborhood that is about a block or two from where I lived and grew up. Given the timing of our walk, EVERYONE on the sidewalk was Orthodox, either a man in a suit and a yarmulke or a woman in long sleeves and a long skirt.

I made some comment to my family how I felt a little bit uncomfortable that I was wearing pants and a short-sleeve shirt among such modestly dressed women, and how I felt that our attire was certainly offensive to our Orthodox neighbors.

And my brother, the Orthodox one who now tells me I should be wearing a skirt (and that I should ask the army for an army skirt when I enlist), snapped at me, “What, you can wear whatever you want, they don’t own the neighborhood!”

I kind of miss that….

On the plus side, this orthodoxy means that he’s probably going to come to Israel sometime in the next few months to study at a yeshiva, so that means I’ll actually have family in Israel. So that’s good…


Speaking of wearing skirts, I ended up having a conversation with a girl who grew up secular but has since become orthodox, and now wears a skirt to the floor every day. She made some sort of remark about how she feels better when she wears skirts, and I said that I totally respected that, but that I personally feel better wearing pants and occasionally wearing a skirt if I feel like it. She then went on to say that she used to wear only pants, that she was “just like” me, but that since she started wearing skirts she feels better, or something. Which kind of pissed me off.
I’ve worn a skirt before. I know how it feels.

She also kept pushing me to adopt a Hebrew name for religious reasons. I kept shrugging it off, thinking that my parents picked my two English names (first and middle) for a reason and I’ve been called nothing but them (mostly nothing but my first name) for my entire life and, religious or not, I would feel rather silly deciding that I’m now something entirely different. And to top it off, picking a Hebrew name means not being able to pronounce my own name correctly, which would just be ridiculous. It’d be the same if I were Israeli, moved to the states, then decided I was going to be “Samantha” from now on but introduced myself as “SemenTAH” to everyone.

Lately I’ve been having the realization that I know on my own what right and wrong is. Not just me, I’m not saying I’m any more special than the next people. What I’m saying is that we all do. I’m sick of people like my brother, or this girl, or other people, trying to tell me what right is, what modest is, what religious is. Granted, they all mean well, but it’s like telling me that I have no moral compass or radar or whatever. Browsing the book collection in this absorption center’s library, I’m struck by how most of the books are books of a religious nature, like books on modesty or stuff like that, written by rabbis who think they know better than everyone. I’m not really sure what makes them think they need to be writing books to tell everyone how to behave. I know how to behave. I know what right is, and when I do something that is wrong I think I usually realize it and feel remorse. I think the wrong things I do I genuinely feel bad about, and I don’t need a book or a rabbi to tell me what is wrong, and how/why it is wrong.
I’m not really sure what my point is here. I think living in a city filled with Orthodox Jews is starting to rub off on me—not in the sense that I’m becoming Orthodox, but in the sense that I’m starting to get annoyed by it.

So, good news? I got my blood tested today. Done. Still need to wait for the results/send it to the army center/blahblahblah, but at least Step One is done.

Bad news? Terrorist attack. Luckily for us, it didn’t go so well for the terrorist and he only managed to lightly wound two people before getting shot, but it was a terror attack nonetheless.

Having been in the Jerusalem area for the last two bulldozer rampages, I’m already pretty wary of bulldozers, and when I walk by the construction on Jaffo I feel really uneasy being surrounded by bulldozers. So…great.

I was actually really surprised by how non-chalant the newsreaders were. A couple minutes were devoted to the attack, and then they moved on rather quickly in my opinion. I understand other more important things happened today that need to be discussed, and I understand that (thank G-d!) no one died, so it’s not as serious as it was the first time, but still….
DUDE, BULLDOZER. RAMMING THINGS IT SHOULDN’T BE RAMMING. KIND OF A BIG DEAL.

Have we already become so jaded that things like construction equipment thrice being turned on civilians are no longer a big deal?


Tonight I started to head out of my apartment to go for a walk, maybe to the Old City, but as I was leaving I could hear the mosques blasting their crazy techno beat (okay, so it wasn’t a crazy techno beat, but wouldn’t that be cool?*), and suddenly I just felt so uncomfortable and decided to hold off on taking a walk until tomorrow morning in the daylight hours.


*My friend once told a story of how his cousin or uncle or someone snuck into a mosque one night with a bunch of friends and then during the next call to prayer instead of talking about how great G-d is, the minaret loudspeakers blasted a recording of the Nachman mantra…..don’t know if the story is true, but wouldn’t that be awesome if it were?

You know what I’m going to do when I’m a millionaire? I’m going to build a house that looks like a mosque with a minaret, and every day at prescribed times I’m going to blast techno for a couple minutes. And when I run out of techno I’ll play 80’s hits like “St Elmo’s Fire” or maybe I’ll blast ABBA hits, or the YMCA.

What, you think you can just walk in here and do whatever painful medical procedure you'd like on yourself?

Today did not start off well, I’ll tell you that. Things are looking up though.

So I called my health clinic this morning, and they still can’t do blood tests. But they told me to go to this clinic place a little farther away and that I could just do it there. So I got on the bus, and ended up having to walk about a mile from where I got off simply because there was no convenient bus to take.

Finally I made it to the clinic and said to the women at the desk that I needed a blood test. They asked for a referral form from my doctor, and I said I had none, just the informal note that the army enlistment center wrote me. Then the surly Russian woman snapped at me, “What, you think you can just come in here and do whatever blood tests you want?”

She acted like I were some kind of movie star who thought the world revolved around her, like a movie star who apparently thinks she can just waltz right in and do whatever blood tests she wants just cos she’s famous or something….

Yeah, cos I do blood tests for fun.

It’s really fun going in on low blood sugar and then having to sit there for about a half hour as you get jabbed in 5 different places since no one can find your veins, and then you have to sit for another half hour to fill up the vials because your blood flow is so goddamn thick and slow. Yeah, that’s my idea of a good time. Oh my G-d, I’m getting a rush just thinking about it.


So then I walked outside, feeling kind of hopeless. Fuck. Nothing seems to be going right. And right on Derech Hebron, a very busy street, I just started crying. It was humiliating. Seriously, people of Israel, I just want to join your fucking army, can you give me a fucking break for like two minutes?


So then I waited for the bus for like 20 minutes…and then it turns out that the place I had to get off at was like two stops away, I just didn’t realize it. But then I didn’t want people to think I was lazy, so I stayed on for two extra stops and then backtracked.

I went to my health clinic and explained the situation, that I needed a referral from them to take to the other clinic. My doctor then said in a thick Russian accent, “I didn’t understand.” Which was really worrying. But then I explained again and handed her the informal note from the army center.

Like the Russian woman before her, my Russian doctor snapped at me and said (using almost the exact same words), “What, you think you can just come in here and do whatever blood tests you want?”

She went on to explain that I needed to wait for my official letter from the army (which, according to the army center, was not even sent until today!) that asks for a blood test. Oh G-d. I just buried my face in my hands and just felt so fed up.

Then all of the sudden my doctor’s tone changed, got much softer and kinder, and she said, “Wait. Maybe I can do something.”

After a couple minutes of typing she handed me an “invitation” form to come back to the clinic tomorrow for a blood test. And she said that even if there were still no nurses in the clinic that she’d do it herself. And she said, not to worry, in a couple days they would have the results and they’d be able to send it directly to the army center. I looked up at her, unable to believe my luck, and she shook her finger at me in warning, “Now next time you have to have a proper form, but,” and here she smiled, “this time I’ll help you.”

OMG OMG OMG, I love my doctor. I wanted to leap across her desk and give her an enormous hug, but instead I settled on just saying thank you over and over again. Seriously, ONE person giving you a fucking break once in a while when everything else seems to go wrong…that ONE person can make you feel 100% better.

Well folks…pray that tomorrow everything will go smoothly! Let’s hope that by the end of next week I’ll have an enlistment date, eh? (Of course, next week the army will be telling me that I didn’t do an eye test, or that I didn’t do the computer tests, or that actually I haven’t done ANY of the tests and that I’m not even registered at the enlistment center, or that actually I don’t even exist, or whatever and that I have to do it all over again….)


Today during class I had to translate out loud a difficult sentence from English into Hebrew (the English sentence was a sentence we had already translated from Hebrew), and when I was done everyone made a fuss. It was rather embarrassing. My face turned bright red and I was like, what’s the big deal, “So?” And the teacher said, as if she were stating the obvious, “Well, you’re our little girl!” Hahahah….I’m the youngest in the class by a couple or a few years, so apparently I’m the class’s “little girl.” And apparently this makes anything correct that comes out of my mouth about 75 percent more impressive. Then the 30 year old sitting next to me patted my back and said I was actually the class’s “baby.”

I guess I better enjoy being the baby while I can, cos in the army I’m going to be grandma.

You are the Dancing Jesus.

Well today I found Jesus. I saw this beat up old car with flowers painted all over it, and I looked inside…and literally, in the middle of Jerusalem I blurted out in English, “HOLY SHIT IT’S JESUS!” A few people turned their heads at me, and one person actually started cracking up. I wasn’t trying to be silly, I honestly thought for a moment that I had seen Jesus. Am I a bad Jew if I believe in Jesus? It’s not what you think—I don’t believe in him as a Messiah or whatever, I just mean that Jesus is a character in my life. Does that make any sense? Let me try to explain it better: Sometimes I think that Jesus hangs out on Earth and it’s our duty—not in the religious sense!--to look for him. Like, life is a giant “Where’s Waldo?” book starring Jesus.


Anyway, so yesterday when I called to schedule a blood test for today at my health clinic, the guy on the other line snapped at me that you don’t need to schedule a blood test, you just come in at 7.30 am or whatever. So this morning I woke up bright and early, and then walked up the hill to my health clinic. It’s 30 minutes up this ridiculously steep hill, but there’s no good access to it so there we are. It was also pouring rain and extremely windy.

So I finally got to my health clinic, with my pants wet up to my knees with mud and water, my hair drenched as if I had just washed my hair, and just generally cold, frazzled and tired. And I look at the sign posted on the door of my health clinic: “NO NURSE AND NO BLOOD TESTS TODAY. SORRY.”

Fuck. Are you shitting me?

Totally wet and totally pissed off, I decided that NO, I’m not going to take this. I’m gonna find out my enlistment date TODAY.

So, G-d help me, I went to the kibbutz.

You see, my original blood test was done at the kibbutz and I hoped that maybe they’d still have the results on file and that I could just bring them to the enlistment center today. I unfortunately did not have the phone contact for the kibbutz, so I had to simply go.

The bus ride there was particularly interesting. Two people had their music up very loud. A soldier was listening to an ABBA CD, and a guy wearing a kippa was listening to a best of the 90’s mix that included Britney Spears. All in all, kind of bizarre.

So finally I get to the kibbutz and….holy fuck. It was so weird being back. I would describe it as kind of like being in a haunted house. Like, not an intentionally scary one built for Halloween, but like an old, familiar house that is empty except for the occasional ghost that creeps by.

I walked into the ulpan manager’s office to see if he could help me. Oh G-d. He was so nice to me. I felt horrible. Suddenly I was reminded of something I hadn’t thought of in a long time, of how we in the ulpan used to refer to him as Bozo Goldberg because he looked like a Jewish version of Bozo The Clown. Anyway, he contacted the health clinic and they said to come by an hour later and they’d look for my blood tests then.

So then I started wandering around the kibbutz a bit. I passed by my old room (they fixed the blinds! Finally!), and I tried to climb the hill to the ruins but they have since closed it off. It was just so weird to see everything, to see familiar faces of people I didn’t really know, and to see the view. It’s weird to me that this was ISRAEL to me for five months.

As I was admiring the view, suddenly a familiar person passed in front of me. I still have no idea what his given name is since we all called him “Malouco,” but I remember him from ulpan. I remember the night or so before I left Israel he declared his love for me in front of quite a crowd of people, and since I hadn’t ever talked to him I thought he was just being an asshole or whatever, so I either told him to shut up or go fuck himself or maybe both. Oops. My bad. It probably doesn’t bode well for my future if the only guy who’s ever declared an interest in me I promptly told go shut up/go fuck himself. Oh well, Sam, we’ll work on that.

So anyway, that was the last interaction (and pretty much the only, since we didn’t have a common language, not even Hebrew) we had until today. Even though I lived a couple doors down from this guy for almost five months, the first conversation I ever had with him was TODAY, since he finally learned Hebrew. All in all though, a totally awkward conversation, one which I wanted to flee from.

Finally I decided I needed to go to the laundry room, the site of so much unhappiness. French Bitch’s jaw dropped, but she immediately hurried over and hugged me and showered me with questions. Then Ayin Bitch did the same. (It was around lunch, so many people were out). It was actually really horrible that they were so nice to me, because it made me feel like my unhappiness during my time in the laundry is completely unjustified, but then I remember that they were NOT this nice or interested in hearing about me when I actually worked with them, and then I feel justified.

As the conversation died down, I took a moment and looked around the room. Nothing had changed, even on the bulletin board. As I headed toward the door, I watched for a second as the Bitches folded and sorted laundry, exactly as they had done when I worked there and exactly as they had done for years and exactly as they would do for years to come. And holy fuck, I felt GOOD. People kept telling me, “You know, just remember that you’re only folding laundry with these horrible women for a few months, but they have to do it for their whole lives.” And it didn’t make me feel better until now, when I actually SAW that these women have to continue folding laundry.

At long last my hour of waiting was up, so I went to the health clinic and was told I had to wait ANOTHER hour. I decided to grab a bite from the market, and as I walked their I passed Charades Bitch. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk to her, so I hid. Finally I made it to the market, and as it turns out, the crazy American woman from the laundry room, who once spontaneously started weeping in the middle of work, now works in the supermarket. At least now if she starts crying she can pretend it’s just the onions.

Eventually an hour had passed, so I returned to the health clinic. I waited outside in the cold and rain for the woman to return, and in the end waited 30 minutes longer than she had said. Which totally pissed me off, but that’s Israel for you, I guess. Or maybe just the kibbutz.

As I waited, Crazy Bitch walked by the health clinic. I didn’t want to talk to her, and she couldn’t really see me anyway since I was in the corner, so I kind of turned my head but could still see her reflection in the window. It was kind of like watching Medusa, like I was afraid that direct eye contact would turn me to stone but that it was safe to see her reflection.

Anyway, after 2.5 hours of waiting, it turns out the health clinic no longer has a record of my blood test. Well, fuck.

Looks like tomorrow I have to climb the hill to the health clinic again. Pray for clear skies and for nurses on duty!

Good luck, boyo

Before I begin my story of how my day sucked, let me first concede that someone else was clearly having a worse day. Today when I arrived at the enlistment center, I saw a crowd of soldiers watching something, though I couldn’t tell what as their backs were all facing me and they were blocking what they were watching. As I approached I saw a teenage guy jumping around and screaming and crying about something, though I didn’t understand what. He was yelling at the soldiers, and jumping on walls with frustration, and towards the end even threw his phone at the ground, breaking it into a couple pieces.
The soldiers were so amused that they just waved me through security because they were having too much fun watching this guy to come and check my bag.

So clearly my day wasn’t bad enough to compel me to throw a total temper tantrum right in front of the army enlistment center.

NOW, let me explain why I was back at the enlistment center. I was getting impatient about knowing when I would enlist, so I called the office and asked what the deal was. And they told me that I didn’t have a health profile yet (and therefore had no enlistment date) as I hadn’t finished all my medical tests. WHAT? Yup, they told me, you have another test.

So I came down to the office to check out what the deal was, cos I thought maybe I misunderstood the Hebrew and wanted to actually speak to someone face to face.

Well, apparently I have to do another blood test. If you remember the saga of last summer, I had to do a blood test because of a blood problem I have. The kibbutz forgot to send the results (even though they promised), and then finally a few weeks later they sent it and the army office called me and said, “We got your blood test, you’re done with that.” Word. Well, apparently the army office no longer has those results so I have to do ANOTHER blood test. Which is really frustrating.

What’s the most frustrating part though is that no one fucking told me. At least 4 different people in the army office last time I was there (last week) told me that the ONLY thing I had left was an eye test, and ONLY an eye test. And if you think that maybe I didn’t understand the Hebrew, I will say that TWO times out of the at least 4 times I was told, I was told in clear English.
And, in fact, no one was planning on telling me about the fact that I had to take another blood test until I actually called them myself and asked a sort of unrelated question. Well, fuck. Do all the Israeli retards who enlist in the army get sent to the enlistment center to work? Is THAT why it did not occur to a single person to tell me that I had to do a blood exam?

So I left the army enlistment center totally pissed off and frustrated and whatever, but I felt a little better when I found out that my health clinic actually does blood tests every Monday and Tuesday morning without an appointment, so hopefully I just go in tomorrow and get everything done.

Upset, I walked down the street towards my bank to take care of some business there. On the way I stepped into a store that was stocked with some interesting items for Purim, so I decided to go in for a second to look around and maybe be cheered up a bit by the festiveness. Oh fuck, big mistake.

So I ended up bumping into my former boss from the t-shirt store.

Oh G-d. You know, people always say how great it is that Israel is a small country, how cute it is that you always bump into someone you know—well, as far as I can tell, you never run into the people you’d actually WANT to bump into, and instead living in Israel means running into the person you’d least like to see at any given moment.

Before I even fully registered just who it was that I had seen, my legs had already turned and started running. All my legs knew was that I did NOT want to be seen by this person. I was halfway down the block before I fully realized who I had seen, and I continued sprinting. G-d, if only I could’ve run like that in P.E. back in high school… I sprinted right past my bank, completely saying “Fuck you!” to an important errand there, and a block before the Old City I caught a bus to the mall, desperate to get the fuck away.

So I’m walking around the mall trying to forget that the whole thing with the army is all fucked up, and that I just ran into a boss who (for all intents and purposes, though not technically) fired me, and suddenly my thoughts are interrupted by a group of boys who look like they’re 12. One of them shoves a book of raffle tickets in front of my face and says to me in Hebrew, “Are you prepared to donate to asdghioujopidab?”

I wanted to help, but I had no idea what I would be donating to since I didn’t understand. So I smiled and said in Hebrew, “Excuse me, I didn’t understand.”

So then the boy laughs, and then says in extremely enunciated and extremely slow Hebrew, loud enough for everyone within a 10 yard radius of us to enjoy, “ARE……YOU….PRE-……PARED……TO….DONATE…..TO…. SDGILUSDH…SDGIOSIDG…SDSGKJO?!”

And all of his friends started cackling as if this kid were just the funniest. Several people had actually turned their heads to watch since this little kid was so loud. I wanted to say, “No, but I AM prepared to donate to you a swift kick in the ass, which is what you deserve, you little shit.” But I couldn’t figure out how to say “swift kick in the ass” in Hebrew, so instead I just kind of muttered, “No…” and backed away as the little kids continued to laugh.

You might think it a bit sad that a group of pre-pubescent little shits actually made me cry…but there we are. As soon as I walked away from the boys, still cackling, I felt my eyes tear up. I didn’t want to cry in the middle of the mall, so I started hurrying to the bathroom. It was a bit like having diarrhea of the eyes. “Oh G-d, oh G-d, am I gonna make it to the bathroom in time before I burst?”

Well, I did manage to make it to the bathroom in time, and locked myself in a stall before bursting into silent sobs. I spent maybe 10 minutes crying, and when I came out and saw that I looked like total shit, I spent another 10 minutes standing in the stall waiting for my eyes to return to their normal appearance and for the red in my face to return to its more neutral pink.

At the time, it’s bad enough being humiliated and made fun of, but the worst part is that after it happens you’re afraid of it happening again. For example, I didn’t want to get lunch because I didn’t want to tell the person anything in Hebrew and have them hear my accent, or when the bus door didn’t open on the way home I was reluctant to yell “Nehag!” like everyone else since I didn’t want the entire bus to hear how I couldn’t get the vowels right.

Christ man, I’m not deaf, I can hear I have an accent, and I know damn well I have a limited vocabulary in Hebrew. What do people like this pre-Bar Mitzvah little shit think they’re doing?

And for the record, little kid, you’re ugly as shit. Enjoy making fun of me while you still can because my Hebrew will eventually improve, little kid, but you get to have fun looking like a ferengi for the rest of your life.




Good luck with that.


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