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!