Gaaaa! So it's true! John Edwards isn't the perfect man that I thought he was!!! NooOoooooooO!!!!!!!
Well, I guess I'll have to spend the day mourning. And watching the olympics.
Oh, and it's Saturday. So I guess I'll put this country music song up as a tribute to John Edwards. "I've Got Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Passion of the Hairy Man
I’m watching a movie right now. “The Passion of the Christ.” I’m nine minutes in so far, and if the movie doesn’t calm the fuck down and get over itself then I’m gonna have to hurt someone. I have no fucking clue what’s going on. Apparently the hairy guy has been betrayed and is upset about it, everything seems to be blue, and Judas had money thrown at him by strange looking men.
Now a different group (or is it he same group?) of strange men have met up with the hairy guy in some sort of blue forest, and everyone’s looking around at each other. The hairy man confesses to being Jesus, the movie gets even more dramatic with bright flaming torches that stick out shockingly in the midst of this blue forest, some generic middle eastern wailing plays in the background, and there is a sort of homoerotic kiss shared between the hairy man and some other man who I don’t recognize.
Ah! The other man I didn’t recognize is Judas. “Yehuda.”
They break apart from the kiss, some more dramatic shots of the torches in the midst of this bizarre blue forest, and suddenly there’s a shot of some other hairy man who I don’t recognize. Wait, maybe it’s the same hairy man.
Suddenly a fight breaks out in slow motion. It’s hard to tell who is winning because, as I’ve already mentioned, everything is blue and all the men look the same: hairy. Oh! Someone got away I think. I don’t know if it’s Jesus though. We had to study The Gospels in high school, but I don’t remember there being any fight in a blue forest in slow motion, so I can’t use my background knowledge to figure out who just got away.
I gotta hand it to him, the hairy man looks pretty calm throughout all of this. That must be part of the qualifications for being Messiah/Moshiach: 1) Does not freak out when there is a slow-mo knife fight directly in front of him.
The hairy man has approached a soldier (?) with a bloody wound on the side of his head. He takes the soldier’s hand away from the wound, staring at him deeply…with purpose. This lasts a little too long for comfort. DUDE! HE JUST GREW THE GUY’S EAR BACK! The hairy man is caught and led away, but not before it has been made clear that the soldier has fallen in love with him, and he stares at the hairy man with longing as he is led away.
I’m beginning to think that the point of this movie is just to show that Jesus got beaten up a lot before he died. Is that a legitimate story for a movie?
Now a different group (or is it he same group?) of strange men have met up with the hairy guy in some sort of blue forest, and everyone’s looking around at each other. The hairy man confesses to being Jesus, the movie gets even more dramatic with bright flaming torches that stick out shockingly in the midst of this blue forest, some generic middle eastern wailing plays in the background, and there is a sort of homoerotic kiss shared between the hairy man and some other man who I don’t recognize.
Ah! The other man I didn’t recognize is Judas. “Yehuda.”
They break apart from the kiss, some more dramatic shots of the torches in the midst of this bizarre blue forest, and suddenly there’s a shot of some other hairy man who I don’t recognize. Wait, maybe it’s the same hairy man.
Suddenly a fight breaks out in slow motion. It’s hard to tell who is winning because, as I’ve already mentioned, everything is blue and all the men look the same: hairy. Oh! Someone got away I think. I don’t know if it’s Jesus though. We had to study The Gospels in high school, but I don’t remember there being any fight in a blue forest in slow motion, so I can’t use my background knowledge to figure out who just got away.
I gotta hand it to him, the hairy man looks pretty calm throughout all of this. That must be part of the qualifications for being Messiah/Moshiach: 1) Does not freak out when there is a slow-mo knife fight directly in front of him.
The hairy man has approached a soldier (?) with a bloody wound on the side of his head. He takes the soldier’s hand away from the wound, staring at him deeply…with purpose. This lasts a little too long for comfort. DUDE! HE JUST GREW THE GUY’S EAR BACK! The hairy man is caught and led away, but not before it has been made clear that the soldier has fallen in love with him, and he stares at the hairy man with longing as he is led away.
I’m beginning to think that the point of this movie is just to show that Jesus got beaten up a lot before he died. Is that a legitimate story for a movie?
It's just a flesh wound.
Just wanted to share with you the bandages from my ridonculous wound. That I don't know how I got.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
I assure you, I speak no English.
Today I was in the sorting room and some Elton John came on the radio. And I totally out-diva-ed everyone. In my head. If I were in my car back home though, it could have been SERIOUS. If you want to see someone go diva, watch me sing Elton John. I think I’m a gay man trapped in a straight girl’s body. Is that an accepted sexuality nowadays?
My senior year of high school I had to drive a freshman with me to school every morning. She was shy, I’m shy, so it was a pretty silent drive (anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes). Towards the end of the year I had started forgetting that she was even in the car with me, so sometimes I’d quietly hum along with the radio (which I always put on the 50’s-70’s station). And one day an Elton John song came on, and totally forgetting that the girl was in the car with me, I started BELTING it as if Elton John himself had personally asked me to accompany him during a concert. “Look Sammy,” he had said to me, “the acoustics in this place are terrible so I’m really going to need you to project. Can you do that for me?”
Yes, Elton John. I can. And I will.
So I’m basically screaming this song for a few minutes. (“DON’T LET THE SU-U-U-N GO DOWN ON MEEEEEEEE!!!!”) And I’m driving along. I get to a stop sign, and so I look left to see if I can safely proceed. Then I look right and—OH SHIT! In my passenger seat was my frightened passenger who I had forgotten about, staring at me as if I were 100 percent macadamia nuts.
Today Astrology Bitch says to me, “You know who is Oprah? Oprah Winfrey?” I’m sorry, is that even a question? Is there someone on this planet who doesn’t know who The Goddess is? Is there someone on this planet who is unaware of the existence of this Leader of the Free World? If someone out there reading this blog does NOT know, please tell me so that I can murder you.
I’m getting really sick of how the Women of the Wash constantly talk in Hebrew as if I’m not there. Today, for example, I pulled a cart of towels across the room (since I didn’t want to sit at Crazy Bitch’s table), and Charades Bitch says to Old Bitch, “Look what she’s doing. Why is she doing that! Tell her to do something on THIS side of the room. I don’t understand why she’s doing that. Tell her!” As if I can’t understand Hebrew. But then a couple minutes later, Charades Bitch wanted me to move some stuff a bit to make room for her, and she started BLABBERING away at me in rapid Hebrew. Luckily I understood, but it’s kind of ridiculous that she’ll yell across the room in simple Hebrew telling others to tell me what to do as if I can’t understand, but then when she wants something for herself I (apparently) suddenly understand Hebrew perfectly.
I’ve decided that if she does that to me again, when she tells me to move for her I’ll say to her in really complicated Hebrew that I don’t understand. I’ll work on my accent until it’s perfect, and I’ll use the hardest words possible, but I’ll basically tell her, “I do not understand Hebrew.” She’ll repeat what she says, and in even more complex Hebrew I’ll repeat: “I do not understand Hebrew.” She’ll get frustrated, and I’ll whip out some flowery phrases, perhaps some Old Testament shit, that basically boil down to “I don’t speak Hebrew.”
It’s like that Kids in the Hall sketch. “I assure you, I speak no English.”
So today I was listening to “I Got You” with Sonny and Cher, and I realized that I can’t tell when Sonny is singing and when Cher is singing. Is that sad?
Also, you know the song “Ketchy Shuby” by Peter Tosh? This is a totally random memory now, but indulge me: I just realized today that while most people associate that song with smoking and mellowness, I associate it with flaming cars. I just remembered today that that was the song that was playing on a special night. My brother was going through a phase where he was into reggae, so he was playing it while driving him and a friend of ours home from school after a late-night theater rehearsal. So we’re driving along, it’s really mellow in the car….and then on the side of the road we saw that there was a car up ahead on the side of the freeway and there’s a small fire. As we begin to approach the car (we’re on the freeway so we’re going like 60 or 70 mph), suddenly FWOOOOOOM! A huge fireball erupted out of the car (thank G-d the passengers were out of the car by then), like 50 ft into the air. Like, it was a legit explosion. The boys, both 17 at the time, started shrieking like little girls being murdered, and I the 16 year old girl just kept yelling, “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! HOLY FUCK!” Again, we’re still on the freeway and still going like 70 mph, and my brother is now swerving everywhere because he’s still shrieking like a diva, and he keeps turning around to look at the explosion. Meanwhile I’m struggling from the backseat to keep our friend (sitting shotgun) from opening the door and leaping out due to fear.
Friend: “I’m getting the fuck out of here! (Trying to open door)”
Me: “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? WE’RE ON THE FREEWAY!!!!”
Brother: “AAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Friend: “LET ME OUT!”
Me: “We’re going 70!!!!!!”
Brother: “AAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!”
Friend: “I don’t care, I want out!”
Me: “YOU’RE GONNA DIE, YOU RETARD! STAY IN THE FUCKING CAR!!!!”
Brother: AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”
So we’re all screaming, barely make it off the freeway. My brother pulls over once we’re off the freeway, and we all just sit there catching our breath. And I remember now, as we sat there silently, still trying to recover from our panic, “Ketchy Shuby” was playing. Almost like Peter Tosh was laughing at us.
My senior year of high school I had to drive a freshman with me to school every morning. She was shy, I’m shy, so it was a pretty silent drive (anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes). Towards the end of the year I had started forgetting that she was even in the car with me, so sometimes I’d quietly hum along with the radio (which I always put on the 50’s-70’s station). And one day an Elton John song came on, and totally forgetting that the girl was in the car with me, I started BELTING it as if Elton John himself had personally asked me to accompany him during a concert. “Look Sammy,” he had said to me, “the acoustics in this place are terrible so I’m really going to need you to project. Can you do that for me?”
Yes, Elton John. I can. And I will.
So I’m basically screaming this song for a few minutes. (“DON’T LET THE SU-U-U-N GO DOWN ON MEEEEEEEE!!!!”) And I’m driving along. I get to a stop sign, and so I look left to see if I can safely proceed. Then I look right and—OH SHIT! In my passenger seat was my frightened passenger who I had forgotten about, staring at me as if I were 100 percent macadamia nuts.
Today Astrology Bitch says to me, “You know who is Oprah? Oprah Winfrey?” I’m sorry, is that even a question? Is there someone on this planet who doesn’t know who The Goddess is? Is there someone on this planet who is unaware of the existence of this Leader of the Free World? If someone out there reading this blog does NOT know, please tell me so that I can murder you.
I’m getting really sick of how the Women of the Wash constantly talk in Hebrew as if I’m not there. Today, for example, I pulled a cart of towels across the room (since I didn’t want to sit at Crazy Bitch’s table), and Charades Bitch says to Old Bitch, “Look what she’s doing. Why is she doing that! Tell her to do something on THIS side of the room. I don’t understand why she’s doing that. Tell her!” As if I can’t understand Hebrew. But then a couple minutes later, Charades Bitch wanted me to move some stuff a bit to make room for her, and she started BLABBERING away at me in rapid Hebrew. Luckily I understood, but it’s kind of ridiculous that she’ll yell across the room in simple Hebrew telling others to tell me what to do as if I can’t understand, but then when she wants something for herself I (apparently) suddenly understand Hebrew perfectly.
I’ve decided that if she does that to me again, when she tells me to move for her I’ll say to her in really complicated Hebrew that I don’t understand. I’ll work on my accent until it’s perfect, and I’ll use the hardest words possible, but I’ll basically tell her, “I do not understand Hebrew.” She’ll repeat what she says, and in even more complex Hebrew I’ll repeat: “I do not understand Hebrew.” She’ll get frustrated, and I’ll whip out some flowery phrases, perhaps some Old Testament shit, that basically boil down to “I don’t speak Hebrew.”
It’s like that Kids in the Hall sketch. “I assure you, I speak no English.”
So today I was listening to “I Got You” with Sonny and Cher, and I realized that I can’t tell when Sonny is singing and when Cher is singing. Is that sad?
Also, you know the song “Ketchy Shuby” by Peter Tosh? This is a totally random memory now, but indulge me: I just realized today that while most people associate that song with smoking and mellowness, I associate it with flaming cars. I just remembered today that that was the song that was playing on a special night. My brother was going through a phase where he was into reggae, so he was playing it while driving him and a friend of ours home from school after a late-night theater rehearsal. So we’re driving along, it’s really mellow in the car….and then on the side of the road we saw that there was a car up ahead on the side of the freeway and there’s a small fire. As we begin to approach the car (we’re on the freeway so we’re going like 60 or 70 mph), suddenly FWOOOOOOM! A huge fireball erupted out of the car (thank G-d the passengers were out of the car by then), like 50 ft into the air. Like, it was a legit explosion. The boys, both 17 at the time, started shrieking like little girls being murdered, and I the 16 year old girl just kept yelling, “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! HOLY FUCK!” Again, we’re still on the freeway and still going like 70 mph, and my brother is now swerving everywhere because he’s still shrieking like a diva, and he keeps turning around to look at the explosion. Meanwhile I’m struggling from the backseat to keep our friend (sitting shotgun) from opening the door and leaping out due to fear.
Friend: “I’m getting the fuck out of here! (Trying to open door)”
Me: “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? WE’RE ON THE FREEWAY!!!!”
Brother: “AAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Friend: “LET ME OUT!”
Me: “We’re going 70!!!!!!”
Brother: “AAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!”
Friend: “I don’t care, I want out!”
Me: “YOU’RE GONNA DIE, YOU RETARD! STAY IN THE FUCKING CAR!!!!”
Brother: AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”
So we’re all screaming, barely make it off the freeway. My brother pulls over once we’re off the freeway, and we all just sit there catching our breath. And I remember now, as we sat there silently, still trying to recover from our panic, “Ketchy Shuby” was playing. Almost like Peter Tosh was laughing at us.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
I SPEAK ENGLISH!
So today I was at the family's house. And the mom left and put the little boy (who speaks not a single word of English) in front of the TV to learn some English while she left for a bit. So I come downstairs and sit on the couch next to the little boy, and he tells me he wants to watch a different video. I told him that it has to be an English one because his mom wants him to learn English. I ask him which movies are in English, and he immediately points to this video.
The woman on the front is basically wearing a suit made out of an American flag. She's apparently called "Suzie." So the movie starts and IMMEDIATELY you can tell it's 80's or at least early 90's quality. This energetic song comes on, and (this is not me making this up) here are the lyrics in their entirety:
"I SPEAK ENGLISH! I SPEAK ENGLISH!
ANI MDABERET ANGLIT!"
Over. And over again. It was worse than the guys who say "Tel Aviv" at the Jerusalem bus stop, except Suzie breathes. Except, even worse, Suzie has 80's style music, and flashing lights, and dancing people. I SPEAK ENGLISH, she screams to the world. Briefly she slips into Hebrew and informs the Israeli audience that she speaks English. But fearing that perhaps they won't believe her if she says it in Hebrew, she returns to English and tells us again:
"I SPEAK ENGLISH! I SPEAK ENGLISH!"
I learned some cute little slavic cultural thing yesterday which my American friends (hey Abraham!) might find interesting. When there's an awkward pause or quiet lull in a conversation, it is said that a policeman is born. This is what the Ukrainian and Russian told me yesterday. I said, "WHAT??" And the Ukrainian repeated, "Yes, a policeman is born when we don't talk to each other." And the Russian added, "And a Jew dies."
Also, told my parents almost directly that I'm joining hte army. I said, "After ulpan I think I'll join the army." I made it sound like it was still an open option (which it really isn't anymore). And they freaked out. Wow were they angry. But they think it's just something I'm CONSIDERING.... so.... um...this is a problem.
The woman on the front is basically wearing a suit made out of an American flag. She's apparently called "Suzie." So the movie starts and IMMEDIATELY you can tell it's 80's or at least early 90's quality. This energetic song comes on, and (this is not me making this up) here are the lyrics in their entirety:
"I SPEAK ENGLISH! I SPEAK ENGLISH!
ANI MDABERET ANGLIT!"
Over. And over again. It was worse than the guys who say "Tel Aviv" at the Jerusalem bus stop, except Suzie breathes. Except, even worse, Suzie has 80's style music, and flashing lights, and dancing people. I SPEAK ENGLISH, she screams to the world. Briefly she slips into Hebrew and informs the Israeli audience that she speaks English. But fearing that perhaps they won't believe her if she says it in Hebrew, she returns to English and tells us again:
"I SPEAK ENGLISH! I SPEAK ENGLISH!"
I learned some cute little slavic cultural thing yesterday which my American friends (hey Abraham!) might find interesting. When there's an awkward pause or quiet lull in a conversation, it is said that a policeman is born. This is what the Ukrainian and Russian told me yesterday. I said, "WHAT??" And the Ukrainian repeated, "Yes, a policeman is born when we don't talk to each other." And the Russian added, "And a Jew dies."
Also, told my parents almost directly that I'm joining hte army. I said, "After ulpan I think I'll join the army." I made it sound like it was still an open option (which it really isn't anymore). And they freaked out. Wow were they angry. But they think it's just something I'm CONSIDERING.... so.... um...this is a problem.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Telavivtelavivtelaviv.
So today I threw up at work. Luckily I made it to the bathroom. But still, my throwing up was probably the classiest thing ever to have happened in that laundry room. In case you couldn’t tell by the lack of posts, for the past week or so (the week before I snapped and fucked off to Haifa) I’ve been real depressed. So basically the past few days have been spent in a drunken/stoned/hungover daze. Which explains the throwing up. (At this point, y’all are probably like, “Wow, TMI/too much information.” But again, this is my blog and I’ll be as narsty as I like. Get used to it.) Oh well.
Good news from the army? I’m apparently starting in “late September.” Don’t know exactly when, don’t know my health profile yet, and don’t know anything beyond that.
So that’s exciting. I don’t know if they’re fucking around with me, I don’t know how “official” this new information is….but I’m still feeling a little bit better knowing it. I remember reading this phrase a lot in Little House on the Prairie, or some such book: “When the Good Lord closes a door, he opens a window.” Or something like that. But basically that saying (thanks, Laura Ingalls Wilder!) is how I feel right now. So in spite of the fact that pretty much everything else has gone to shit, at least the army thing is starting to look up.
I figured out how to get revenge on this fucking kibbutz during work. Whenever I am given something to fold (in this case usually towels), if it is wet I am expected to lay the towel down somewhere else to dry, and not to fold it. (Because of mildew.) I’ve started getting some kind of sick pleasure from folding up damp towels and putting them in the kibbutzniks’ laundry cubbies where they can continue to grow nasty things and make all of the other clothing in the cubby smell like total ass. Am I a terrible person? Jesus Christ, is that spite or what?
This morning in the sorting room the radio was on, playing something straight out of the Renaissance Fair. Seriously, you walked in and it was like “Merrie Olde Englande” in there. I expected to see young maidens dancing around a May Pole, going a-maying, and I looked for damsels wearing cone-shaped hats. As I put away towels, I walked as if I were a young woman at a post-jousting tournament medieval ball. Those of you reading this are probably saying, “Wow, what a fucktard…I’m not going to read this blog anymore because that’s just beyond ar-tarded-ness.” But this is what you have to do to keep yourself from committing suicide when you work in a fucking laundry room.
Have also realized that I am slowly (but not slowly enough…) turning into Ms. Havisham from “Great Expectations.” I half expect that within a week I will get rid of all my clothing and instead settle on wearing a dingy, yellowing wedding dress for the rest of my life. I have realized that I am a crazy bitch, and that the time has come to accept it. And with acceptance comes a rotting wedding cake and a visit from a mid-19th century guy named Pip.
It’s kind of unfortunate because I’ve always wanted to be a literary character. Just, unfortunately, Ms. Havisham wasn’t the one I had my heart set on. You know, I was kind of hoping I could be a Disney princess (I know that’s not literary), or if I were a guy I’d either want to be Sir Galahad or Ari Ben Canaan. Or if I HAD to be a character with a tragic end, maybe I could be Guenevere. But Ms. Havisham it is!
All this shit aside, I HAVE settled on a post-army career. (Despite the fact that I haven’t even started the army yet.) I’m gonna be one of those people outside the tachana merkazit in Jerusalem that advertises sherut taxis to Tel Aviv. I’d just stand outside all day, saying OVER and OVER again, “Tel Aviv Tel Aviv Tel Aviv Tel Aviv.” Notice I didn’t put punctuation in there. That’s because the guys don’t speak with pauses. A more accurate representation would actually be “Telavivtelavivtelaviv.” At first I thought maybe I didn’t have the lung capacity for this sort of job (that was always a problem for me when I was younger and played the flute, and also whenever I go swimming), but I’ve since realized that these men do not breathe. There simply isn’t time to breathe in an entire workday of “Telavivtelavivtelaviv, ad infinitum,” so surely these men must have some sort of special breathing apparatus that they attach to themselves every morning at the start of work, and thus a large lung capacity (or even lungs at all!) is an irrelevant job requirement.
Just a thought.
You know what else I just thought about? Johnny Appleseed. I don’t know where to go with that. For the Americans out there (hey Abraham!*), do you remember learning about Johnny Appleseed? Did anyone else out there get pissed off by Johnny Appleseed? Just going around planting shit and not taking care of it? If you’re a man and you go around “planting” babies never to take care of them, you get in trouble. But you just go around recklessly planting trees for OTHER folks to tend to, and suddenly you’re an American folk legend? I mean, at least Paul Bunyan was a total badass.
(*I know I’ve done this a couple times on this blog so far, but now I’ve decided that EVERY blog post from now on will contain a mandatory shout-out to Abraham, even if totally irrelevant.)
Finally: Yesterday I found out a lot about some family history at the Museum of the Diaspora. Turns out my great-great-grandfather spent a great deal of time in an insane asylum in Chicago after immigrating from Russia. Which brings up the known number of crazy people that I am a direct descendant of to: 2. (And joyfully, the other person is from the OTHER side of the family, so I get it from both sides.)
Good news from the army? I’m apparently starting in “late September.” Don’t know exactly when, don’t know my health profile yet, and don’t know anything beyond that.
So that’s exciting. I don’t know if they’re fucking around with me, I don’t know how “official” this new information is….but I’m still feeling a little bit better knowing it. I remember reading this phrase a lot in Little House on the Prairie, or some such book: “When the Good Lord closes a door, he opens a window.” Or something like that. But basically that saying (thanks, Laura Ingalls Wilder!) is how I feel right now. So in spite of the fact that pretty much everything else has gone to shit, at least the army thing is starting to look up.
I figured out how to get revenge on this fucking kibbutz during work. Whenever I am given something to fold (in this case usually towels), if it is wet I am expected to lay the towel down somewhere else to dry, and not to fold it. (Because of mildew.) I’ve started getting some kind of sick pleasure from folding up damp towels and putting them in the kibbutzniks’ laundry cubbies where they can continue to grow nasty things and make all of the other clothing in the cubby smell like total ass. Am I a terrible person? Jesus Christ, is that spite or what?
This morning in the sorting room the radio was on, playing something straight out of the Renaissance Fair. Seriously, you walked in and it was like “Merrie Olde Englande” in there. I expected to see young maidens dancing around a May Pole, going a-maying, and I looked for damsels wearing cone-shaped hats. As I put away towels, I walked as if I were a young woman at a post-jousting tournament medieval ball. Those of you reading this are probably saying, “Wow, what a fucktard…I’m not going to read this blog anymore because that’s just beyond ar-tarded-ness.” But this is what you have to do to keep yourself from committing suicide when you work in a fucking laundry room.
Have also realized that I am slowly (but not slowly enough…) turning into Ms. Havisham from “Great Expectations.” I half expect that within a week I will get rid of all my clothing and instead settle on wearing a dingy, yellowing wedding dress for the rest of my life. I have realized that I am a crazy bitch, and that the time has come to accept it. And with acceptance comes a rotting wedding cake and a visit from a mid-19th century guy named Pip.
It’s kind of unfortunate because I’ve always wanted to be a literary character. Just, unfortunately, Ms. Havisham wasn’t the one I had my heart set on. You know, I was kind of hoping I could be a Disney princess (I know that’s not literary), or if I were a guy I’d either want to be Sir Galahad or Ari Ben Canaan. Or if I HAD to be a character with a tragic end, maybe I could be Guenevere. But Ms. Havisham it is!
All this shit aside, I HAVE settled on a post-army career. (Despite the fact that I haven’t even started the army yet.) I’m gonna be one of those people outside the tachana merkazit in Jerusalem that advertises sherut taxis to Tel Aviv. I’d just stand outside all day, saying OVER and OVER again, “Tel Aviv Tel Aviv Tel Aviv Tel Aviv.” Notice I didn’t put punctuation in there. That’s because the guys don’t speak with pauses. A more accurate representation would actually be “Telavivtelavivtelaviv.” At first I thought maybe I didn’t have the lung capacity for this sort of job (that was always a problem for me when I was younger and played the flute, and also whenever I go swimming), but I’ve since realized that these men do not breathe. There simply isn’t time to breathe in an entire workday of “Telavivtelavivtelaviv, ad infinitum,” so surely these men must have some sort of special breathing apparatus that they attach to themselves every morning at the start of work, and thus a large lung capacity (or even lungs at all!) is an irrelevant job requirement.
Just a thought.
You know what else I just thought about? Johnny Appleseed. I don’t know where to go with that. For the Americans out there (hey Abraham!*), do you remember learning about Johnny Appleseed? Did anyone else out there get pissed off by Johnny Appleseed? Just going around planting shit and not taking care of it? If you’re a man and you go around “planting” babies never to take care of them, you get in trouble. But you just go around recklessly planting trees for OTHER folks to tend to, and suddenly you’re an American folk legend? I mean, at least Paul Bunyan was a total badass.
(*I know I’ve done this a couple times on this blog so far, but now I’ve decided that EVERY blog post from now on will contain a mandatory shout-out to Abraham, even if totally irrelevant.)
Finally: Yesterday I found out a lot about some family history at the Museum of the Diaspora. Turns out my great-great-grandfather spent a great deal of time in an insane asylum in Chicago after immigrating from Russia. Which brings up the known number of crazy people that I am a direct descendant of to: 2. (And joyfully, the other person is from the OTHER side of the family, so I get it from both sides.)
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Back in the game!
Well folks, by “Aw Eff” standards it’s been a long time since the last post.
Those of you who actually follow what goes on here (all one of you…..hi Abraham!) are probably thinking, “Wow, I bet Sam heard back from the army by now!”
Well, you thought wrong.
Well, you thought partially right. The army says two things: 1) I don’t need more ulpan in order to start. 2) They are going to give me a few job options based on my health/various tests/etc, and based on which one I choose I’ll know when I start. But they haven’t told me my options yet. So I still have no idea what I’m going to do or when I start or what the hell I’m going to tell my parents. Every two days I call the army people and they tell me that they’ll know in another two days. So I call two days later. And they tell me again to ask again in two days.
So that’s where we stand with the army. Where do we stand with everything else?
Well, on Wednesday I lost it. I was at work and a BUNCH of tables were empty. And Crazy Bitch comes up to me and stands right in front of my table. She says to me in Hebrew, “I want this table.” Very firmly. She means business.
I thought this was a weird thing for her to say, so I figured that maybe I just misunderstood something in Hebrew. Yeah yeah, OF COURSE I probably just didn’t understand the Hebrew she was using. That MUST be it. So I just smiled and when she turned around to briefly talk to a different lady, I continued folding.
Well, when she turned back around she was NOT happy to see that I was still folding on what apparently (even though I’ve been folding at that table for 3 months without problems) is HER FAVORITE TABLE. The table that she needs and wants and whatever whatever. She leaned in closer and said in an even more frightening way, “I. Want. This. Table.”
Clearly this woman is insane. In spite of the fact that there were three IDENTICAL tables available, she made me gather up all of my piles of clothing, my cart full of folded clothing, my personal belongings….and move across the room to an identical but available table. I had had enough though. Why do these woman do stuff like this to me? Because they can. It’s such a stupid thing to get upset over, but there we are….
So I went out to lunch on Wednesday afternoon…and didn’t come back until Sunday.
Instead, on Wednesday—while apparently the Women of the Wash and the ulpan staff were FREAKING OUT over where I was because my sudden disappearance from work was so surprising—I went into Jerusalem. I ate ice cream on Ben Yehuda Street, and eventually I walked over to Hadas’s place (before the whole table incident I had arranged to come over to pick up a book). Over cookies I explained the table story, she was outraged, and I felt a lot better.
Thursday I went to class, and I knew I needed a break. I needed some time alone and some time off the kibbutz. So after class I went up to one of the ulpan staff members and said, “I’m going to Haifa right now, I’ll be back on Sunday.” And I started to walk away. I’m sick of fucking asking for permission. This was not a request, this was me TELLING her that I’m going to Haifa. She started yelling at me that I had to tell my boss, and I said no. She started shrieking at me, and I just walked away.
And so I hopped on a bus to Jerusalem, and onward to Haifa!
For those of you just tuning in, until this past weekend I had never been there but I had wanted to go since I was 7.
Oh man. It was wonderful. Haifa is even more wonderful than I thought it would be. I fucking love cities on mountains. Like, I know Jerusalem is hilly and shit, but since everything around it is hilly, you don’t really notice. Haifa though……..oh man. That is a “FUCK YOU!” mountain. That is, “Ocean ocean ocean ocean…..coast coast coast coast coast, co--WHOAAAAAA NELLY! LOOK AT THAT MOUNTAIN! AND THERE’S A MOTHERFUCKING CITY ON IT!!!!”
So my initial plan (and the plan I carried out) was to be near the port, because I thought that’d be cute because that’s what I remember learning about in Sunday School. I figured the bus would stop somewhere in the middle of Haifa and I could just walk or something.
Hahahaha, how wrong I was. First of all, the bus stop that the bus stopped at was a “central” bus station but it didn’t have the word “Haifa” in it. So I started freaking out that I was in the central bus station of the wrong city. Then I figured out that Haifa has a couple different “central” bus stations or something like that. And then I had to figure out where the fuck I was and where the fuck I was trying to get to….and eventually I figured out at least one option.
So I got on this bus, and holy shit. Holy shit did I love Haifa. All my life I heard, “Haifa is like Los Angeles.” My initial reaction was, “Haifa looks NOTHING like LA (for better or worse).” But by the end…now I kind of get it. I think from now on when I get homesick I’ll just have to go to Haifa. It’s like a humid, Hebrew-speaking version of LA with a Bahai center. Which is kind of cool.
So anyway I’m on the bus, and after a while I started getting antsy. The bus stopped at a place with a lot of bus stops, so I thought maybe my best bet would be to get off here. I pulled out a map, looked up hostels on my cell phone, and I found what I thought was the nearest one. What I did not take into account, however, was that maps do not usually do an accurate job of expressing that YOU’RE ON A FUCKING MOUNTAIN! So I basically (unintentionally) ended up going on a fucking hike down the mountain, with a backpack full of shit and everything.
My journey took me through, what I considered, the ghetto. Everything was run down, I saw Arabic everywhere, I think I was probably the only white person/Jewish person within a several-block radius. I continued to hurry down the hill, and I had two options: 1) walking out of my way to take some stairs down for part of the way, or 2) making a more direct way through what I THOUGHT was just some rubble about the size of a plot of land for a house. I chose option two. So I’m hiking my way through this bumpy, rocky terrain. And I just happen to glance down. Oh, shit. Oh shit. This is not just some rubble. This is what I now believe to be an abandoned Muslim cemetery. Oh Jesus. I ended up turning around and running back –no, not running. Sprinting.--the way I came.
Finally I made it to a hostel, all ended well…
So I rode that little subway thing that goes up the hill. Oh my goodness. I mean this in the best possible way: the Carmelit is the gayest little subway I have ever experienced. It’s petite, and the platforms reminded me of Legos. It was like being in an (only slightly) larger, uphill version of the Paris Metro at Legoland.
You know what else? NO ONE FUCKING SPOKE ENGLISH TO ME! It was glorious! Usually in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, the second someone hears my accent they switch to English. But in Haifa? Nope.
I also went in a church. Which was weird. I haven’t been to synagogue since I got to Israel, yet I can now say I’ve been in a church in Israel. Not to pray or anything, just as a tourist.
It was wonderful. Most of my time was spent sitting in random street corners/shopping malls/whatevers reading books and just enjoying some time away from the fucking kibbutz. It’s actually quite nice, because when I walk around Jerusalem with friends we always stick out as the tourists because everyone can hear us speaking English. Anyone who addresses us does so in English immediately. But when I go to Jerusalem (or Haifa, in this case) on my own, I get to keep my mouth shut and no one has to know that I speak English or that my Hebrew is total crap (well, if it’s good enough for the army, it’s good enough for me!). I mean, yes I am wearing American clothing and yes I’m always a bright red sunburned lobster, whereas most Israelis seem to be this marvelous tan color at all times, but still.
So on my last day in Haifa I was silently appreciating this to myself as I walked among Israelis on the street…”Haha, I’ve outsmarted the system, no one knows for sure that I’m an American/English speaker!”
And then this weird lizardy-snake thing popped out of nowhere and came towards me. In the middle of a small crowd of pedestrians, I jumped back and, before I even realized the words were leaving my mouth, screamed in my American English, “Eew! Eew! Holy Shit! What in the name of Christ is that?!?!?! EEEW!!!!” And everyone looked at me. Shit. I have to stop blowing my cover.
Anyway. Tomorrow I am calling the army AGAIN. Maybe then I’ll have more information. Stay tuned.
(You know what all this army talk reminds me of? “BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE!” That was the greatest army slogan ever. I miss it. Much better than “Army Strong.” Though the “Army Strong” commercials are quite interesting and, at times, moving. Disagreements? Shall we continue this talk about marketing strategies of the American Army? It’s so weird. I don’t think Israel has the same sort of thing. Maybe I just haven’t noticed it yet. But in the US, you get ads for the army on TV, in magazines and before EVERY movie. Do they have to advertise the army in Israel? I guess not since it’s not like people really have a choice. I guess if I knew I were to be drafted in the army, and I saw a commercial telling me to join the army, I’d be like, “ALL RIGHT, I GET IT, FUCK OFF!”)
Those of you who actually follow what goes on here (all one of you…..hi Abraham!) are probably thinking, “Wow, I bet Sam heard back from the army by now!”
Well, you thought wrong.
Well, you thought partially right. The army says two things: 1) I don’t need more ulpan in order to start. 2) They are going to give me a few job options based on my health/various tests/etc, and based on which one I choose I’ll know when I start. But they haven’t told me my options yet. So I still have no idea what I’m going to do or when I start or what the hell I’m going to tell my parents. Every two days I call the army people and they tell me that they’ll know in another two days. So I call two days later. And they tell me again to ask again in two days.
So that’s where we stand with the army. Where do we stand with everything else?
Well, on Wednesday I lost it. I was at work and a BUNCH of tables were empty. And Crazy Bitch comes up to me and stands right in front of my table. She says to me in Hebrew, “I want this table.” Very firmly. She means business.
I thought this was a weird thing for her to say, so I figured that maybe I just misunderstood something in Hebrew. Yeah yeah, OF COURSE I probably just didn’t understand the Hebrew she was using. That MUST be it. So I just smiled and when she turned around to briefly talk to a different lady, I continued folding.
Well, when she turned back around she was NOT happy to see that I was still folding on what apparently (even though I’ve been folding at that table for 3 months without problems) is HER FAVORITE TABLE. The table that she needs and wants and whatever whatever. She leaned in closer and said in an even more frightening way, “I. Want. This. Table.”
Clearly this woman is insane. In spite of the fact that there were three IDENTICAL tables available, she made me gather up all of my piles of clothing, my cart full of folded clothing, my personal belongings….and move across the room to an identical but available table. I had had enough though. Why do these woman do stuff like this to me? Because they can. It’s such a stupid thing to get upset over, but there we are….
So I went out to lunch on Wednesday afternoon…and didn’t come back until Sunday.
Instead, on Wednesday—while apparently the Women of the Wash and the ulpan staff were FREAKING OUT over where I was because my sudden disappearance from work was so surprising—I went into Jerusalem. I ate ice cream on Ben Yehuda Street, and eventually I walked over to Hadas’s place (before the whole table incident I had arranged to come over to pick up a book). Over cookies I explained the table story, she was outraged, and I felt a lot better.
Thursday I went to class, and I knew I needed a break. I needed some time alone and some time off the kibbutz. So after class I went up to one of the ulpan staff members and said, “I’m going to Haifa right now, I’ll be back on Sunday.” And I started to walk away. I’m sick of fucking asking for permission. This was not a request, this was me TELLING her that I’m going to Haifa. She started yelling at me that I had to tell my boss, and I said no. She started shrieking at me, and I just walked away.
And so I hopped on a bus to Jerusalem, and onward to Haifa!
For those of you just tuning in, until this past weekend I had never been there but I had wanted to go since I was 7.
Oh man. It was wonderful. Haifa is even more wonderful than I thought it would be. I fucking love cities on mountains. Like, I know Jerusalem is hilly and shit, but since everything around it is hilly, you don’t really notice. Haifa though……..oh man. That is a “FUCK YOU!” mountain. That is, “Ocean ocean ocean ocean…..coast coast coast coast coast, co--WHOAAAAAA NELLY! LOOK AT THAT MOUNTAIN! AND THERE’S A MOTHERFUCKING CITY ON IT!!!!”
So my initial plan (and the plan I carried out) was to be near the port, because I thought that’d be cute because that’s what I remember learning about in Sunday School. I figured the bus would stop somewhere in the middle of Haifa and I could just walk or something.
Hahahaha, how wrong I was. First of all, the bus stop that the bus stopped at was a “central” bus station but it didn’t have the word “Haifa” in it. So I started freaking out that I was in the central bus station of the wrong city. Then I figured out that Haifa has a couple different “central” bus stations or something like that. And then I had to figure out where the fuck I was and where the fuck I was trying to get to….and eventually I figured out at least one option.
So I got on this bus, and holy shit. Holy shit did I love Haifa. All my life I heard, “Haifa is like Los Angeles.” My initial reaction was, “Haifa looks NOTHING like LA (for better or worse).” But by the end…now I kind of get it. I think from now on when I get homesick I’ll just have to go to Haifa. It’s like a humid, Hebrew-speaking version of LA with a Bahai center. Which is kind of cool.
So anyway I’m on the bus, and after a while I started getting antsy. The bus stopped at a place with a lot of bus stops, so I thought maybe my best bet would be to get off here. I pulled out a map, looked up hostels on my cell phone, and I found what I thought was the nearest one. What I did not take into account, however, was that maps do not usually do an accurate job of expressing that YOU’RE ON A FUCKING MOUNTAIN! So I basically (unintentionally) ended up going on a fucking hike down the mountain, with a backpack full of shit and everything.
My journey took me through, what I considered, the ghetto. Everything was run down, I saw Arabic everywhere, I think I was probably the only white person/Jewish person within a several-block radius. I continued to hurry down the hill, and I had two options: 1) walking out of my way to take some stairs down for part of the way, or 2) making a more direct way through what I THOUGHT was just some rubble about the size of a plot of land for a house. I chose option two. So I’m hiking my way through this bumpy, rocky terrain. And I just happen to glance down. Oh, shit. Oh shit. This is not just some rubble. This is what I now believe to be an abandoned Muslim cemetery. Oh Jesus. I ended up turning around and running back –no, not running. Sprinting.--the way I came.
Finally I made it to a hostel, all ended well…
So I rode that little subway thing that goes up the hill. Oh my goodness. I mean this in the best possible way: the Carmelit is the gayest little subway I have ever experienced. It’s petite, and the platforms reminded me of Legos. It was like being in an (only slightly) larger, uphill version of the Paris Metro at Legoland.
You know what else? NO ONE FUCKING SPOKE ENGLISH TO ME! It was glorious! Usually in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, the second someone hears my accent they switch to English. But in Haifa? Nope.
I also went in a church. Which was weird. I haven’t been to synagogue since I got to Israel, yet I can now say I’ve been in a church in Israel. Not to pray or anything, just as a tourist.
It was wonderful. Most of my time was spent sitting in random street corners/shopping malls/whatevers reading books and just enjoying some time away from the fucking kibbutz. It’s actually quite nice, because when I walk around Jerusalem with friends we always stick out as the tourists because everyone can hear us speaking English. Anyone who addresses us does so in English immediately. But when I go to Jerusalem (or Haifa, in this case) on my own, I get to keep my mouth shut and no one has to know that I speak English or that my Hebrew is total crap (well, if it’s good enough for the army, it’s good enough for me!). I mean, yes I am wearing American clothing and yes I’m always a bright red sunburned lobster, whereas most Israelis seem to be this marvelous tan color at all times, but still.
So on my last day in Haifa I was silently appreciating this to myself as I walked among Israelis on the street…”Haha, I’ve outsmarted the system, no one knows for sure that I’m an American/English speaker!”
And then this weird lizardy-snake thing popped out of nowhere and came towards me. In the middle of a small crowd of pedestrians, I jumped back and, before I even realized the words were leaving my mouth, screamed in my American English, “Eew! Eew! Holy Shit! What in the name of Christ is that?!?!?! EEEW!!!!” And everyone looked at me. Shit. I have to stop blowing my cover.
Anyway. Tomorrow I am calling the army AGAIN. Maybe then I’ll have more information. Stay tuned.
(You know what all this army talk reminds me of? “BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE!” That was the greatest army slogan ever. I miss it. Much better than “Army Strong.” Though the “Army Strong” commercials are quite interesting and, at times, moving. Disagreements? Shall we continue this talk about marketing strategies of the American Army? It’s so weird. I don’t think Israel has the same sort of thing. Maybe I just haven’t noticed it yet. But in the US, you get ads for the army on TV, in magazines and before EVERY movie. Do they have to advertise the army in Israel? I guess not since it’s not like people really have a choice. I guess if I knew I were to be drafted in the army, and I saw a commercial telling me to join the army, I’d be like, “ALL RIGHT, I GET IT, FUCK OFF!”)
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