Some thoughts

Still no letter from the army. Having a “Retard Battalion” dream has kind of calmed me down a bit about the whole thing, cos I realize that panicking so much about it is kind of stupid. Like, when you have dreams about “The Retard Battalion,” you know you’re panicking about something stupid. But then I’m still checking my mailbox every two minutes…so clearly I’m not 100% calm.

Speaking of dreams, I had a rather bizarre moment in my dream last night. I don’t remember exactly what was going on in my dream, but at some point someone was singing one of my favorite Brad Paisley songs, “Ticks.” And then in the middle of the song a call to prayer in Arabic kind of floated in. Like, literally floated in through the window, and the music was this visible cloud.
…and the person singing “Ticks” gradually faded from “Ticks” to the morning call to prayer. But the incredible part is that in my dream this vocal cross-fade transition from “Ticks” to this Muslim call to prayer was absolutely seamless!
And then I woke up and, lo and behold, it was early in the morning and you could hear all the calls to prayer from the many mosques that surround my neighborhood.


Also, if I haven’t already mentioned it: earlier this week I saw a girl in an army skirt to the floor….carrying an M16. Just had to share. It was maybe the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. I really had to fight the urge to ask to take a picture with her. It almost makes me want to become religious so that I can get a skirt in the army, and then try my hardest to get a gun-toting job….just so I can bring as much joy and amusement to other people as the sight of this girl brought to me.


So I’m still debating whether or not to contact my only “family” in Israel. Apparently I have “second cousins once removed.”
How does one write an introductory e-mail or make an introductory phone call to such distant relatives? “Hi, you don’t know me but we are both descended from my great-great grandmother. Let’s do coffee sometime?’

This is why I’d like to think I’m doing my close family an immense favor. If they ever make aliyah or come to tour Israel, THANKS TO ME they can say, “My sister/cousin/aunt [unborn relatives]/whoever lives in Jerusalem, we’ll go spend Shabbat there.” None of this “second cousin once removed” shit.

Also….there is this German heavy metal song that cracks me up called “Gott Ist Ein Popstar.” And I really just want to blast it through the Old City loudspeakers.


So I just got back from helping out on a Purim package assembly line. Basically a charity gives a shit ton of goodies to this other charity that asks people to come package up the goodies to be given to soldiers or people in Sderot for Purim. So that was cool. I unfortunately got stuck in the assembly line next to this 10 year old orthodox girl who was apparently “STARVING!” The well-behaved 10 year old orthodox girl on the other side of me just kept reassuring her friend that her hunger pangs were actually a gift from G-d as they showed that she could still feel. I thought that was interesting. But apparently the really hungry girl didn’t care, and she kept screeching across the room (to the benefit of all the volunteers) at her mother about how hungry she was. It was appalling display. The mother just kind of meekly told the girl that they’d eat later, but hungry girl wasn’t satisfied and spent about an hour whining.

Seriously, what is up with modern parents? When I was a little girl, me and most of the people I knew growing up would have been smacked if we behaved like that. And if we were in public, our parents would have given us a stern look and said something like, “You’re hungry? Well, stop whining or I’ll GIVE you something to be hungry about!” Which makes no sense, but this was the way of our parents. If you constantly whined to them that you felt X, they would respond with a stern look and, “Oh, I’ll GIVE you something to be X about!”

I noticed a pattern of REALLY bad behavior among immigrant children though…I think their parents must feel really bad about making them move, so maybe they spoil them?

My kids though? All 29 of them? Hell no. We’re gonna live like boot camp. Actually that’s a lie. But not really. We’re going to have the most chaotic house, but my kids are gonna fucking know how to behave in public or I’m gonna know the reason.


Finally, the question at the back of my mind is where I’m going to live in a few months, after ulpan. It’s not for quite some time, but definitely something I want to think carefully about. I had really wanted to go to Haifa at the beginning, but I’m starting to really like Jerusalem, in terms of familiarity and easy access to religious sites. The problem though is that I don’t like being the only girl in pants for what seems like miles, and I also can’t stand the thought of being taken for a tourist for the rest of my life. Not that I’m gonna have a convincing accent ever in a place like Haifa, but the natural assumption in Jerusalem is that you’re merely a tourist passing through, or a religious American immigrant who may as well be a tourist when you consider how crap their Hebrew is. And I really want to minimize the English responses I get when I speak Hebrew, which is something that happens ALL the time in Jerusalem but less often in Haifa (proportionally at least…clearly I’ve spent more time in Jerusalem than in Haifa).
Oh well. Just something to consider for the next few months.