Get used to it.

It's been an "interesting" day to say the least.

The suicide attempter (who is back from the hospital now) announced to me at lunch that he is moving back to France. Where he faces spending pretty much the vast majority of the rest of his life in prison for a number of things, among them arson, attempted murder ("attempted" seems to be a common theme with this guy....is that a sick joke?), fleeing from the police (why he's in Israel in the first place), and some other shit too. I told him that I wasn't encouraging him to evade justice or anything, but I told him I didn't want him to basically decide to put himself in jail for the next G-d knows how many years just because he's feeling depressed now. Cos prison ain't gonna make it better! If he wants to take the punishment for what he did, then I want him to make that decision with a sane mind (or as sane as possible because clearly this guy is crazy. Always).

Then, of course, there was the attack in Jerusalem. I only understood part of what the radio was saying (basically I understood that some serious shit had gone down in Jerusalem involving a terrorist attack, a bulldozer, East Jerusalem, a soldier, a bus and 'Shaarei Tzedek Hospital'), so I asked one of my co-workers to explain. It really freaked me out because I walk past the spot where it happened like at least twice a week. I then called my parents even though it was the middle of the night because I knew that they'd wake up in the morning and immediately read the news like they always do and then they'd freak out. I know it seems weird to call your parents and say, "I wasn't in Jerusalem today," but when you're thousands of miles away it actually makes sense. It's pretty damn obvious to me that I wasn't in Jerusalem today, but it's not at all obvious to my parents.

So I called my mom, it's like 3 in the morning or something and I start by saying, "Hi Mom, it's your daughter, I'm really sorry I'm waking you up--I just wanna say that I'm at work and I'm absolutely fine but that there was a....a....a..."thing" in Jerusalem today, but there's no need to worry when you wake up and read the news tomorrow."

This was followed by 15 minutes of my mother freaking out--thanking me profusely by doing the right thing by calling her even though she was asleep, but still freaking out and telling me to come home. Finally I calmed her down and we got off the phone.

I went back to work and a few minutes later BOTH of my parents called me back and started freaking out and insisting that I come home. They said they couldn't go back to sleep and that they were reading all the news stories and that they wanted me home now now now. We argued for a bit, and finally they were just like, "Well just stay on the kibbutz for a while then, don't leave it!"

(I'm probably going to Jerusalem tonight.)


Fuck though. I'm sick of this shit. First off, to quote Astrology Bitch today as she screamed at the radio : "WHO USES A TRACTOR TO KILL PEOPLE?? REALLY. WHO DOES THAT?" And second off, to quote Astrology Bitch again: "They think if they keep rocketing us or exploding us up or shooting us or......or hitting us with tractors!....then we will leave and go to a different place. I don't have a different place to go! I don't have another home! Where am I expected to go?! This is it!"