32 and then some

my comments are back!

2006-10-26T07:05:00.000+02:00

so this is a non-official post that will probably be read by few if any but......

yay! my comments are back.

i considered blogging again a couple of months ago and was depressd to see that all my comments had been deleted. call me egotisitical but others feedabck kind of completed some of my posts for me and it just made it harder to be enthusiastic about picking up my blog pen again.

but they're back!

ironically (given my first statement) but now i know that nobody is reading...

maybe i can come back too

testing 123

2006-05-15T07:36:00.000+03:00

anybody out there?

methinks that my previous post may have accidentally been a prophetic metaphor for my blog's demise. (something like its ok just to stop - nothing to prove blah blah)

well it is true, two months and not a whimper.

two relatively uneventful months with such highlights as
-- my first seder and pesach with A (spent with rest of my family...)
-- chucking out 2 huge boxes of notes - and nine years of procrastination -- for my (unfinished) masters to make room for yuppy type wicker chairs on our mirpeset
-- trying to use recently learned mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques -- an interesting course to begin a week after your wedding
-- finally reconnecting with a writing group after a year's hiatus

hmmm hmmm
definite materials for thoughts and writing

then again i'm not the only one who seems to have taken a blog break -- this crowd seems to have as well (although this one's still in blog celebratory phase - oh the energy of the young)

and anyway i could choose to write about other kinds of things or in a different style ....
i know creatively i just need to write. the question is whether this is still the/a place to do it

hmmm hmmm
let me think this one out.

who nose

2006-03-14T00:58:00.000+02:00

i think i'm going to let my nose ring hole close up.

its not that i dont like it.
i love it.
its just i think the universe is telling me something and i feel healthily obliged to pay due attention.

i have admired my nose ring and enjoyed it being admired many a time since its world debut nearly five years ago.

indeed my decision to have a nose ring in the first place is possibly my favorite decision ever. (bar marrying A, of course but there's a point to be made here which discounts standard lifechanging decisions)

it came at a time when i was going through one of those life phases that was earth shattering for me, if perhaps slightly unnoticeable to the untuned human eyes around me. i was learning how to make adult choices. finally working out which factors and opinions were really worthy of consideration and which were just confusing background noise to be ignored (however hard that can be).

i remember the process. it was the first time that i was able to go from the stage of recognizing that this was something i'd like to do, to the stage of practical considerations -- such as is it expensive, dangerous, reversible -- without getting caught up in the nine times out of ten superfluous 'what will the neighbors think' stage.

it was truly liberating
and i was happy to have a constant reminder of this conscious healthy decision less than two inches away from my eyes, all the time!

as far as i was concerned the rest of the world could read into it what they wanted
... and they did.

-- i was both turned down because of, and accepted despite of , my nose ring, for at least two jobs.

-- i found that i could finally wear long skirts without people asking me if i'd suddenly 'frummed out'.

-- i was able to blend in with the 'young crowd' when traveling across new zealand and australia, even at the ancient age of 29.

-- i felt a distinct change in people's attitudes towards me. over night i was considered someone who was a little bit out there and for whom you could make no assumptions about. sometimes people seemed visibly riled -- why had i confused a good set of assumptions and thrown a spanner in the works of their standard place-people- in-boxes-for-safety routine.

-- i was allowed to consider myself as someone who was a little bit out there and for whom you could make no assumptions about. my standard place-people- in-boxes-for-safety routine was rocked at its very core.

-- not a few (often religious, sometimes married) men felt obliged to tell me about how they secretly found it sexy. they asked me if i could convince their wives to get one too... and whether i had piercings in any other places.

-- i became a new object of interest and wonder to those looking to expand their horizons. a married contemporary at a bet shemesh brit pointed out how fascinated her daughter was by the lady with the silver in her nose. i got the distinct impression that she felt that i had helped give her offspring a broader education by exposing them to the 'wider world out there'.

-- i developed standard answers to the questions like, how do you blow your nose; does it hurt when you sneeze? (the same, actually it makes picking it more fun; not as much as the other piercings)

-- i couldn't help but notice the not insignifcant number of girlfriends and other acquaintances who subsequently took the plunge (or the needle) and i felt duly complimented.

so as you can see -- it was fun.

technically speaking, it was quite easy to maintain but it was more squeamishness than ideology that kept my nose ring constantly in my nose for over two years.

it was only when i played a victorian lady of leisure in a superb mamet masterpiece that my nose ring came more detachable. the change came when my equally superb and dedicated director insisted that i learn to take it out for performances in order to maintain authenticity.

but although i now had the new pastime of playing with said nose ring in boring meetings (inconspicuously of course) it still stayed with me for another year and a half with no major event.

until i got engaged.......

an unrelated event one would think.
(especially as A had always been supportive if a bit ambivalent about it. )

but here's the thing.
two days after the proposal, having just enjoyed a dip in the mediteranean i discover that my nose ring has fallen out! yes fallen out -- for the first time in over four years (a time period which trust me had had its fair share of swimming and cavorting)

fairs fair, i replace it
but this was just the beginning of my travails so it seemed.
to cut a long story short, since june 2005 i have gone through at least six nose rings as they continue to fall out in wet and dry situations alike.

Note this includes a nose ring chosen especially for the wedding (see right), which was even handed to a friend with the rest of my jewellery for segula luck before the chupa!

most bizarre indeed.

unaccustomed as i am to replacing the ring, this has become a true pain in the nose.
(often literally as if i dont always get round to buying one immediately the first wearing can involve a form of minor surgery!)

which brings me back to my latest healthy decision.

having failed to buy a new nose ring for nearly a month and being forced to use an earring every week or so to ensure that hole is still intact (last attempt clearly failing) i've decided to give up the fight.

i'm giving up the fight and surrendering to the forces of the universe orwhoever is behind this change in energies.

and thats ok.

because as i've learned , having a nose ring is not expensive or dangerous and its clearly reversible. so if i really want, i can have my nose pierced again. simple as that.

and furthermore... all that other stuff i learned about myself is still true.
i dont need to prove anything (now or ever really) to anyone.

lord 'nose', thats the most important part of it all.

A rose by any other name

2006-02-03T08:14:00.000+02:00

Today's post is brought to you by a guest blogger - LM. LG is just getting over the traumas of assuming that something simple that most women do when they're married would be a breeze ... and then being mistaken.

it was my gut reaction when we got engaged.

i doubt A was expecting it but the look on his face when i said i would take his name was enough to tell me it was the right decision. LG would remain the comedian, author -- public persona in the creative realm and LM would be the married one just leading a quiet new life.

yes, taking A's name would be a gentle reminder of my new status, my new reality, a legacy that would pass down to my children (it can be traced back several generations unlike G which is more common than a disgruntled security guard at an Israeli government office) and all in all two extra syllables that i'd kind of been longing for all my life.

(another not to be overlooked advantage would be that the name LM would allow me the anonymity to post on local email lists looking for a second hand vacuum cleaner without 10,000 people writing back saying are you going to do a comedy routine on household appliances now you're married -- Dustdate? duster? saw you at the dustbin - a frequent occurrence, i kid you not.)

so how do you change your name?

forget passport, id card, bank account etc. these days your email is your name. your name enters into peoples inboxes daily and they will read it or delete just based on that

changing it at home was relatively easy. yahoo happened to have a deal on first.last@yahoo.com alias addresses a month before i got married so i had secretly been l.m@yahoo.com for quite a while. but now there was work. i'd seen what my other friends had done at their places of work. although a fair few had just left their name as it was or double barreled it, i didnt imagine that there was more to changing it than having my old lg@work address forwarded to my lm@work and c'est la vie.

but no -- it was a whole hoo ha.

you'd have thought i was the first person in the building to get married. (after a day of working on my computer the computer support team actually declared me the last). they *had* to change everything on my computer. today at work i am not just married, i am a new user on the system with a new password to boot. but withouth lots of my customized settings - no more beautiful desktop pics, email rules that filed boss' emails to their own folder and others straight to junk and auto-corrects in word which prevented me having to type any word longer than 5 letters.

i had to re-examine everything i did by rote - work out how to set it up again. and then when i needed the computer department's help again i found myself justifying the idiosyncratic nature of my workspace. it was very stressful....

ok smug marrieds out there (read anyone married more than 6 months). stop with that knowing nod or else you're going to hit your head on the screen. i know there's a metaphor there. yes yes marriage does require examining how you do everything all over again and thus brings a ton of adjustments. I KNOW THAT goddamit but give me a break in cyberland at least.

ok where were we?
still at work, right (whats new)
and then to add insult to injury then because the lg@work account is to be eventually shut down, they insisted tha i officially announce my new address to the office -- 500 people!!! (which if not embarassing enough had to be recalled and then sent again when i made a mistake)

what a statement for someone who didnt want to make a statement.

email travails over, last week i finally went to the ministry of the interior to change things officially.

i had considered double barring my name for official use only (ie to make the changeover easier). but on consulting the clerk she made me feel very special by pointing out that i wasnt doing anything more difficult or different than anyone-else and that i'd manage but if i wanted to be LGM i'd need to fill in another form.

she let me think about it for at least 30 seconds and then i took the plunge. LM i would be -- in the eyes of my husband, the State and this wrinkled looking gum chewing clerk.so i filled out the forms (the ones i already had) and then when i went to get my new ID card from the counter.

i dont know whether i was consciously expecting a little bit more understanding from the girl whose job it was to give out the new cards but if i was, i was disappointed. the woman didnt just replace my ID card, she actively took LG and threw her in the bin! as she printed out nice new LM i could see LG lying abandoned in a waste paper basket, gone forever. I didnt even get a chance to say goodbye properly. i thought i'd keep her as a keepsake.

i cried.

i asked the clerk if other women cry when this happens
she just looked at me

i cried even more.

it was so strange. i couldnt say exactly what it was. i havent changed as a person - LG is still in me. LG is the solid foundation that LM is starting with. its her wisdom and experiences thats going to make LM be the best woman she can be. i've been LG for 33 years and maybe in my mind i always will be. but this beauracratic move got me deep down inside.

eventually i was reassured that this was a hard step but still worthwhile. but not from any civil servant.

i called A as i was leaving the building and blubbed down the phone about not knowing who i was and why had i done it, i thought it was right but this was too hard and he was able to just listen and be there for me. he could have told me to pull myself together. he could have pointed out that it was my decision but he didnt. he just listened and said i know (and that was even before his first coffee in the morning)... i guess having someone like that in my life is worth more than a new initial.

(just to be sure i called a number of good girlfriends to check that i wasnt going mad and then that was that!)

i meant to write this post last week but didnt get round to it -- and that seems to have been providential as here comes a timely epilogue

last shabbat i got to shul pretty early (epsecially considering that i often dont get there at all). i go to a shul that davens separately but calls up women to the torah. i have no intention of going into the politics or halachic implications of this status as it is not relevant to the purpose of the story so sorry, just had to point that out so readers would understand.

apart from simchat torah (when everyone gets called up) and my shabbat kallah which i held separately with just women, i have never been called up. but as i arrived at shul at 8:45 it dawned on me that given my newly married status i could well be a candidate. sure enough the gabaiit approached me and asked me if i'd like an aliyah. i said yes. and then she asked me my name.

considering the week i'd had i hesitated -- what was my name, now? i thought and then i realized that as far as G-d's record books go i am the same person -- L Bat A v' R. i have been defined by my parents all my life and always will be. just as i cant change my parents i cant change who i am.

i smiled.

thank you G-d (holder of 70 names, how do you manage?) for that validation

---

LG will be back for the next post because, well you read the rules -- this is the creative realm (and an anonymous one to boot) so she gets to stay!

what every girl dreams of

2006-01-03T04:28:00.000+02:00

we got married!

although i have been only a rather casual blogger of late, on the merit of A the wedding received more than a passing mention onthe hip jewish website jewschool as well as wonderful online dedication by one of his closest friends who couldnt be with us.

(Note: i am totally grateful to have the event immortalised in the blogosphere by the former -- despite the total "out-ing of our true identities -- but i do feel the need to point out that the author's claim to have inspired my blog debut is a slight rewrite of history! his workshop did lead me to change my comments to haloscan but i guess as a media man that just wasnt sexy enough...)

to try and describe the day would be impossible but i would like to share one small part with you.

while some girls dream for years about their wedding dress imagining every detail of its style and feel, for as long as i can remember i have been doing the same...for my speech! i always knew that i'd speak at my wedding but the question was always how to balance the humour and the serious stuff, the jewish with the romance, the retrospective with the now.

so after years of planning in my head, a good few months of banging away at the keyboard and one about-as-perfect-as-it-gets execution, here it is....

my wedding speech

The advantage about being a mature bride is that by the time you get to your wedding day you do know some ultimate truths.

For example I know that while I may actually have a chance of fitting into – and thus wearing – this wedding dress again -- it just won’t happen.
I also know that the chances of me making it through this speech with a dry eye is about as likely as my mother saying “you should have eloped.” Thus contrary to some people’s expectations I am not doing this off the cuff/ off script or off anything apart from this piece of paper.
And finally I know a good person when I meet one. And I met one.

Speaking tonight is tricky because I cannot rely on my regular topics: Making fun of Americans, Kvetching about parental pressures and Sharing the angst of being single in Jerusalem.

My comedy routine is testimony to how much my life has changed – I am married, directly related to an American and our parents made this night possible with minimal demands.

So for those of you who are familiar with my comedy you'll know that there’s only one befitting thing to do before officially burying six years of material. And that’s to say: Mum – Thanks for asking – my social life is great!

---

A and I would like to thank our family and friends. Not just for what you’ve done for us in the lead up to the wedding in the last six months but for what you’ve done in the lead up to this moment in say the last thirty years or so.

To Our Family
In Kenton – that almost mythical place in London where I grew up – there was a verse from Proverbs that the community would sing in shul to the bar mitzvah boy after the Rabbi’s drash.

Shema bni musar avicha v’al titosh torat imecha
Listen to the instruction of your father and do not forsake the Torah of your mother

Although never a barmitzva boy myself, this message was clearly drummed home for me. Do not forget that parents are your primary source of direction and guidance in life. Their advice is invaluable, their care and attention irreplaceable.

Both A and I owe much to our parents in that respect. Your love, beliefs and efforts have helped shape us to be the people we are today. You’ve taught us your Torah and made us proud Jews.

Mum and Dad – you always put your children first. When I think of all the holidays abroad you could have had but no our education and Jewish social life were far more important in your eyes. You also taught us what it was to be an active part of a community – how to give of myself in that capacity – and how to receive in return.

R., L. – you made a life changing move to ensure that your children would have the freedom to be Jewish and have the best opportunities in life. Your sacrifice of starting again and being a real immigrant in a new country not only ensured their material wellbeing but transmitted a strong sense of identity and meaning.

To our grandparents who are no longer here – but showed us the way either in person or through family folklore– you are here, you’re in our thoughts, our personalities, our memories and our hearts.

To our extended family – our sisters, brothers in law, nephews, nieces, uncles, aunts and cousins – the fact that you’ve traveled from far and wide to be with us – Los Angeles, Liverpool, London, Cape Town, Petach Tikva and in fact all over Israel – is typical of your ongoing presence and influence in our lives.

It is easy to go through life seeing the small picture - the arguments and quibbles - but looking back we can see how really very fortunate we are. Thank you.

And to Our Friends
Pirkei Avot teaches us Kane L’cha Chaver -- Acquire yourself a friend. At first glance this reads like a nightmare commercial from a consumer world gone awry however the common interpretation to this verse is far from it. Our rabbis merely recommend that one finds oneself a friend – a chavruta – with whom to face life’s adventures, with whom to fathom life’s mysteries head on, with whom to grow.

Both A and I have had the fortune to acquire many such friends. Friends who aren’t just in our lives but make our lives.

Friends who have shared our worries, quandaries, delights and passions. You are them.
Friends who have advised us, listened to us, discussed with and rejoiced with us. You are them.
Friends who have hosted us, fed us, nurtured us, taught us. You are them

You are too many to name but today we especially want to thank
- Friends who through them A and I met in the most natural non-Jdate kind of environment. You know who you are and you have a permanent invite to my parents home.
- Friends who have traveled from Toronto, New York and London – who’ve left fiancées and families behind - just to be with us today.
- Friends who have seen us through every detail of this occasion – from listening to hours (and hours) of dating dilemmas to choosing suits and invitation designs to doing so many things that i couldnt even have imagined when i wrote this speech to singing beautifully at the chupa and for leading it so well.

But our favorite thing about you – our family and friends – is how you’ve both become each other.

Our friends you are our family – you’re there for us on a daily basis doling out support , advice, chocolate – whatever’s needed. For the many of you who are already doing the married with kids bit you make us grateful that we have such incredible role models as we start our journey.

And our family you are our friends (or else we really wouldn’t have invited you!). And my parents could give a master class in how to make lifelong friends. There are too many people in this room who have known me all my life. I continue to confuse people when I speak of at least ten different aunties when my parents have only two siblings between them.

And now to you A.

You’re both
You’re my best friend
You’re my closest family.

Finding you has been a humbling process – one for which I thank G-d daily.
You’ve changed my life – you inspire me, reassure me, challenge me and make me a better person. Even more importantly you make me laugh.

As the verse that you chose from Eshet Chayil for our invitation says – Oz v’hadar levusha v’ tischak lyom acharon. I certainly look forward to laughing and playing with you for the rest of my days– we can discuss the strong and glorious clothes later on.

A, I know that one of the challenges of meeting me – apart from my accent, my work schedule and my clear lack of interest in discussing who will be this year’s MVP – has been meeting the many people in my life. You’ve shared with me that this can be overwhelming but I guess I brush it off because you seem to handle it so well.

I wonder, if you sometimes wonder, how exactly you fit in with all these other people around. Well, I’ve relied on our sages to elucidate things until this point but I hope you’ll forgive me if now I turn to the words of Lennon and McCartney to explain this koshi.

Though I know I’ll never lose affection, For people and things that went before. I know I’ll often stop and think about them. In my life I love you more.

To our friends and family – L’Chaim and lets dance!

conscious mrs A to be

2005-12-28T22:37:00.000+02:00

i'm getting married in 13 hours.

i am -- true to form -- awake in the early hours of the morning. but i guess if there was ever a night when it's normal not to sleep this would be it

despite the lack of sleep i am uncannily calm.

after months of arrangements, hard work and lots of crying the last 24 hours have been serene. i should probably give myself credit for a well planned end of planning that helped bring about this tranquil time (i should also give my friends and family credit for supporting my boundaries with that as they went out their way to make sure i didnt have to anything either)

this serenity began with a very positive mikva experience on tuesday night and continued with a wonderful holistic massage and jacuzzi early wednesday morning. the massage lady said she was going to do some energy healing to get my chakras in line and get rid of the "omes" (burden) off my shoulders. i dont know what she did exactly but she clearly performed a miracle as i was able to spend yesterday relaxing at home while friends popped in and called from abroad - and i didnt cry once.

the waves of love and affection that have been coming my way are overwhelming yet reassuring and calming. i feel so blessed

but i dont know if i've got anymore of a focus on my pending "mrs A" status though.
i wish i had the right deep thoughts, or felt that i handle on the enormity of this day, but i dont.
does anyone ever get that on the day?

i should probably put it on my list of things to give over, not to worry about, to just let happen.

yes thats my biggest challenge of the day is to just let it happen in a very conscious way. be there, be present, take things in to remember and cherish and then enjoy myself like crazy.

only questions

2005-12-07T21:47:00.000+02:00

i've just spent two days visiting different programs supported by the organization i work for in the jewish communities of kishinev and beltsy and my mind is spinning.

what are we doing here? how did jews get here, how are they still here and why? is this still a jewish community - if they have to be taught and the shul is on the bylines (how closed minded am i?) what is a community? can you consider it carrying on a chain having elderly people in day care centers singing a yiddishe mama and avinu malkeinu (and making me cry) while many of their children are far away or they have no one to carry it on? who is jewish? what is jewish? is it better to have a minority very orthodox and the rest secular or is broadly progressive/traditional better? is it ok for me to judge about a community who has next to no kosher facilities and bemoan their lack of discipline when i myslef do not to take on some halachot due to an equal lack?

what am i doing for my community - the poor and the elderly? am i as bad as those children - what do i do on a daily basis to build a jewish community or to care for the needy? did i - by moving to israel - seemingly relinquish this reponsibility to the state and the taxes i pay? how will i convey to my children the pride of being jewish without being super orthodox or rightwing or just plain wishywashy?

how do i communicate the need for support in what i write? how do i communicate it to others so they can write it? how can i be convincing but not shmaltzy? should that be a goal or do i need to just stop being cynical? is it false empathy when i think this could have been my family if someone hadnt made a wise decision at the end of the century? am i being sanctimonious by thinking about A's family who really could have been here far more recently? am i thinking about my wedding becasue i am really moved by the community i see and my role in that chain or is just because i have a selfish need to bring it back to me.

how does a country ever get out of poverty? what would have happened here if communism hadnt happened? should i be suspicious of non-jews here and just remember the progroms and the massacres or should i trust what the community says today -- those who are returning. the new israeli moldovans - big business men who dont know yet what it is to give to their community in a sustainable way.

how do i reconcile staying in this posh hotel when it costs the equivalent of a 7 months pension a night? should i just grow up and know that this is how the charity business works? maybe thats why i'm annoyed with myself that i'm wearing a shlochy dubon and not a smart business like coat. get over it already.

but the most difficult question is why have i just paid an extra 7 lei (approx 1-2 nis) just to stay in this internet cafe listening to a popped up version of TFF's everybody wants to rule the world while i obsessively look at onlysimchas.com? i hate that website. i feel nautious from the terminal clicking to find someone i know. is it a subconscious desire to connect with something i know -- some alternate but more recognizable form of jewish continuity -- even if it is one that makes me feel like an outsider?

or maybe my stomach is just turning after nearly two hours in front of this luminous screen.

time to log off. answers another time

less than a month

2005-12-05T04:53:00.000+02:00

its less than a month before we get married
its less than 12 hours before i go to kishinev for a three day work trip
i'm more than excited to go -- its a study trip really so it promises to be inspiring and a break.
i'm more than ready to get married already.

the last few months have whizzed by and dragged at the same time.

normal life is on hold as we are stuck between memories of the 'simple times' when we were just going out - frolicking in meadows with no worries in the world (it is remarkable how 5 months of alternate angst can be wiped by a selective engaged memory) and married life visualized as an oasis of time together not worrying about planning a gala event and just being (naive perhaps but amuse us we're pre-newly weds).

life has become one big checklist of minor details that i would never have imagined i could imagine, keep track of or care about. and scattered among these intricacies are even more lessons for A and I to learn.

thank g-d we do seem to be learning.

we may never have to plan something like this again but we've discovered things about ourselves on the way -- tendencies, traits, patterns, indiosyncracies -- that will be pertinent in the future. i think we're doing ok, becoming aware of them, helping each other make slight shifts amd adjustments, loving each other even when thats hard.

i keep thinking that if our biggest worry and annoyance in life is planning our wedding we will be doing very well so with all the moaning its a good basic training to have gone through.

the best thing we're doing now is trying to focus on being present and conscious at the time. being aware of the celebration that it is without guilting ourselves or expecting too much. letting go of the ifs and the buts and getting ready to enjoy what will be.

its less than a month....

thanks

2005-11-13T08:34:00.000+02:00

thank god for...

sleep when it happens (and good pills when it doesnt)
a (computer) mouse that works
flexi-hours (even if there are too many of them)
A
forgiving blog readers that trust that if the first three things happen enough you may see me blog again

shavua tov

L x

bring your toothbrush but no flashlights

2005-10-25T22:29:00.000+02:00

we interupt our month of silence for a brief chizuk to many of our readers

to all current and ex zionist youth movement types
a memo regarding your participation in and planning of wide games, "get out of russia" type station tochniot and generally any kind of simulation game that involves children completing ostensibly impossible and clearly imbecelic tasks just to get whats rightfully theirs.

please ignore all those 'adults' and cynics who have told you that the above activity is frivolous, uneducational and totally unrelated to real life.

intense undercover work by our staff at the jerusalem bet din has revealed that these activities are possibly the best preparation for surviving a morning in this oft (and understandably) reviled institution. in fact based on this research we would like to offer the following suggested additions in order to make these worthy operations even more beneficial for future generations of budding zionists and sadists.

1) be sure that all people manning the stations speak under their breath and incoherently.

2) have said incoherent people give participants a form that they must fill out in a foreign language (ie not english or hebrew or any they can write) before they can open an official file.

3) request that participants have this form stamped by someone who also doesnt understand before they go to see the 'expert' who can actually read and write said language.

4) when said form is finally filled in by expert (contestants will realize that they have to take initiative and skip out the stamping person) make sure the expert (however nice he turns out to be) is forbidden from giving his approval to them personally but rather have him fax it down 3 flights of stairs to original incoherent person

5) ensure that participants queue another hour to meet again with original incoherent person.

6) have original incoherent person reprimand them several times for filling in this form before opening a file.

7) once file is filled in have participants queue again 5 feet to the left of original incoherent person in order to pick up fax to give back to him.

8) finally place a security guard in charge of the lines of participants who looks and acts uncannily like a mental patient on his day out from 'the home'.

yes indeed add just one of these steps to your endeavour and your participants will not only bond better as a team but they will discover all sort of tendencies to violence, cursing and even voting for shinui that they themselves had no idea about!

Hasham Imachem!

staying conscious

2005-09-24T23:00:00.000+03:00

we got engaged in june
we're getting married in december
add the 5 and carry the 1 and this equals a 7 month engagement

in a bizarre demonstration of the polar cultures that i come from and live in, the length of this engagement period has aspired distinct reactions from israeli and UK residents.

israelis think we're crazy -- what are you going to do for 7 months. call us up in november and we'll talk details then.

english people think i'm pregnant -- whats the rush, and you've only known him 5 months? do you have time to get everything planned. we'd love to come but we already scheduled our christmas break holiday 2005 in 2002.

personally i'm finding this length of time just fine thank you. this maybe to do with the fact that i also started a new job in August (same workplace different position) which has fair consumed alot of my energies, life and will to carry on. ho hum... its getting better.

but i even think that new job aside i wouldnt have wanted to do this any quicker.

i am discovering that being engaged is a bit like a hot water on my psychological wounds. its bringing everything to the top that needs to be dealt with and cared for, and in some cases ejected right out of the system.

and you cant even prepare yourself for it.
i thought i had.

a wise friend on hearing of my happy news called me up and insisted on lending me this book --the conscious bride. a must read for all women in pre-nuptual state, it goes into great detail as to how emotional turmoil is a given for a new bride and that it shouldnt be suppressed although it is western culture's tendency to do just that. this is a time of grief, loss, separation, hard to label emotions and other confusion which do not mean that you've made a wrong decision just that along with this incredibly right decision comes a huge amount of transition and adjustment.

so i read it and it helped. it definitely explained my random crying bouts and helped me approach the wedding planning in a calmer fashion. i told everyone about it. i sent it to a friend getting married in england. i even started planing the lecture tours.

yes i thought i had it worked out. i'd read about it so i was ready to be in control of this expected out of control state.
but i'm not.

i am discombobulated to say the least.

i never expected anything could get as intense as this, even as i have what i want -- A. does not cease to be a funny caring perceptive tower of strength and i feel eternally blessed to be with him.

and it is not relevant to go into the exact details of the issues that i am facing but suffice to say that they are difficult, frustrating, painful and hard... and yet it feels right.

i know i'm going to get through this and wonderful things wait for me on the other side.

but sometimes i just want to crawl up into a ball and not deal.

on missing blogging

2005-09-06T00:26:00.000+03:00

i miss blogging

its been so long but i just didnt want to write an 'i'm sorry i havent blogged' posts. i shouldnt need to explain my life

i've thought about writing up my post of 'things to do in ny when you're engaged' -- it was going to be full of great links and look i even had a cool title
i've thought about trying to express how wierd being engaged is. the emotions, the sense of going over to the dark side. one day a militant single, the next a smug married in the making
i've thought about finally writing about those things about religious zionism that i never finally wrote out and so now i am forced to read all those post-disengagement soul searching where finally everybody's writing about what i've been thinking if not saying for years

all this thinking and no ones going to read it because you've all given up this blog anyway.

when i created this blog this time last year, just before an existential crisis involving near drowning in my own tears and breakfast across the table from my parents in a florence hotel, was '32 and then some' a limited yet prophetic title?

was it always going to be just a matter of time before this thing fizzled out because my life was fizzling up?

whos to say -- afterall its hardly sane reasons that have kept me away. but i cant say more than that otherwise i contradict line 2

oh well this is a start.

small screen is better than nothing

2005-07-28T07:41:00.000+03:00

no i am not quoting a hallmark director trying to convince a hollywood hasbeen to star in his tv movie.

having had a wonderful month away from home and work i returned to find a computer screen that had decided to take the same route, and not come back. the truth is, since i dropped said screen on the floor sometime in the summer of 2003 - resulting in a permanent black dot and psychedelic haze at the bottom of the screen - i've known that its been living on borrowed time.

thus for a week i have been (home) computer less. to be honest it was quite relaxing because settling back into things and adjusting body clocks takes up enough time and energy as it is, however there is a limit to how long a girl can remain offline.

so blessed be the gods of advancing computer technology and speedy fashions. thanks to the introduction of 17" screens there are an abundance of 14" screens knocking around my workplace with nothing to do. ever willing to help those who have been abandoned i have adopted one of those said screens and i am staring at it lovingly as we speak.

yay!

it maybe small but its doing the job ;-). anyway hopefully by the time i get round to getting too annoyed, the flat screen revolution will hit israel en mass and i'll get a 17" back again...

on being human

2005-07-08T07:24:00.000+03:00

i dont think it is an exaggeration to say that i grew up on london underground.

for seven years of my life, from the age of 11-18 i travelled for at least 2 hours each day to and from school on the underground, or as londoners refer to its extensive subway, the tube. my particular stomping ground included the metropolitan line and the circle lines between baker street and euston square - those directly targeted by thursday's horrific attacks.

there is a common phenomenon after terror incidents whereby people talk about how they could have been there. even when clearly they were nowhere near on the day, they still talk about their connections to the site and how they or their family or their neighbors are somehow intricately linked to the place and thats why its all the more shocking.

i hate this. i find the need to contextualize something in one's own world in order to provoke meaning selfish and egotistical. my disdain for this self-centered response is probably behind my cultivated subdued and often muted response to all forms of terror incidents in israel.

i found out about the attacks in london as i was boarding a domestic U.S. flight and learned more about the disaster on various satellite tv channels during the flight. as i heard familiar place names mispronouced by several international reporters and then, having arrived in LA at A's family, tried to explain that 'no my family was nowhere near but...' i realized that in addition to being selfish and egotistical the need to identify was an unavoidable and genuinely human reaction.

for even though i havent lived in london for over ten years and not used london underground on a regular basis for nearly 15 years; even though my parents live and work in the suburbs and the school that i went to in the center of London moved two years ago to right near my parents house; even though london being the huge populous place that it is i am pretty certain i wont know anyone directly involved; my history in the city has lef t me feeling inexplicably affected by these atrocious acts -- somehow i feel a diluted yet distinct version of the 'it could have been me - you violated my world' sensation.

--------------------

as a teenager the tube was a magical entity between parents at home and teachers at school. it was a land where i forged friendships, did homework, argued the cruleties of netball/swim on a winter wednesday, lost many a PE kit, travel card, calculator (much to my mothers wrath and dismay), discussed boys and generally grew up.

i have such clear memories of the trains and the stations. i remember when they were cleaned up so that the colour of the bars matched the line -- yellow for circle, claret for metropolitan, a kind of pink for hammersmith and city cos no-one really knew which line they were.

i remember how our relationship with the journey evolved as we grew up.
-- as earnest 1st years we'd arrive at baker street, jump off the train and run (see bulldoze all other life forms) anxiously from the metropolitan line platform to quickly catch that circle line via Liverpool Street train screaming 'hold the doors' as we charged lest we lose a second in our mission to get to the station in the quickest time possible.
-- as nonchalant third years if we felt like it we might stay on to Kings Cross and change to the northern line through to camden town so we could meet different friends.
-- as mature fifth years with major exams looming we'd be secretly relieved that there was a "man on the tracks" at edgware road which would mean major delays, possibly leading us to miss maths first period.

even as the news announcers talked about the terror attack at aldgate, i couldnt help by think of the glamour and luxury of 'an algate' - a direct train which allowed me the luxury of finding a seat at northwick park, my home station with no need to move until the final destination.

for want of better words and at risk of losing all street cred by quoting a terribly sappy madonna song, these stations used to be my playground, they used to be my childhood home.

--------------------

thursday's events were abhorrent and no less understandable than any that have come before and will (g-d forbid, although my trust is cynical) happen again.

my thoughts are with those who mourn loved ones who were killed, to those still looking for missing relatives and to those injured in the attacks who, as my experience in israel has led me to believe, may carry the heaviest burden of all.

i should be able to say and feel these emotions equally, whereever such attacks take place. if this is not always the case -- then forgive me, i guess i've discovered that i'm human.

happiness and understanding real comedy

2005-07-04T15:28:00.000+03:00

objectively my life is crazy and surreal.
i'm following up all my news from my last post with a month's vacation in the States, Canada and UK.... not with A. i told you - crazy.
and if that were not crazy enough on a larger than life kind of scale, the guilt that is accompanying me on this trip is even crazier.

my original aim for this trip -- planned before i met A -- was comedy: to watch, to write, to do a workshop or two and to perform. and yet this doesnt seem to be happening quite like i planned

certain parameters have changed

1) physically: my time in ny is shorter as in addition to visiting some friends and catching a family wedding i'm also meeting A's family which includes a 4 day trip to LA (much to moan about, not!)
2) mentally: i must acknoweldege the need to relax post engagement and before getting back to a new job and a ton of responsiblity
3) emotionally: i just dont feel so funny or at the least in the mood for writing that i thought that i would

#s 1 and 2 are understandable but #3 was the most worrying -- and has brought about much guilt ... i should be writing my blog, i should be writing reams, i should be doing everything possible, i shouldnt be spending too much money etc etc etc.

the thought that finding the love of my life had possibly killed my comic creativity was mind-crippling and my lack of writing inspiration shocking especially as my whole writing 'thang' was kickstarted by the non-stop jotting down of adventures that enveloped me when i traveled three years ago.

fear not, for wisdom of friends given to be along the way (and the grace of g-d which allows me to eventually hear them) has persuaded me that this is not in fact the case. in particular one conversation caught with a dear confidante during her lunchbreak somewhere in midtown NY last week shed much light on the issue. as she put it -- you cant be that funny when you're happy. think about it, comedians may bring much laughter to the world but its mostly as they kvetch and moan about their life anxsts. we laugh as their trials resonate with us and we gain some relief from ours.

so what does that mean for me? does it mean a life of warmth and happiness with A but no more comedy, or vice versa (which i dont even want to type out in case of tempting fate)???

well luckily it means neither.

what it does mean, is that while at this point in my life i am incredibly happy and grateful for the gifts that i am receive daily, one day (probably as work and wedding plans get going again) there will be once again:

increasing number of days where i could easily strangle pollyanna rather than play her MB all time favorite glad game.
times that will get me swearing and cursing (depending on whether there are brits or americans in the room -- with israelis i'll use both).
life events that will extend even further comically than my single routine to make 'em laugh

basically, however good things are now, their essence may remain while everyday comedy inspiring reality will also be able to creep back in.

phew... i dont need to deconstruct my genuinely happy state just for the sake of my craft, relief indeed/

my job now is to simply appreciate this reprieve from half-glass-empty life and trust that when i need it for material it will be there again.

doesnt get much crazier!

Absolutely not same old

2005-06-10T07:10:00.000+03:00

Part 1
In which she skips over any explanations or excused for her paucity of blogging of late and cuts to the chase that her life has become.

I survived a winter without putting on the weight I lost in the fall
I got a promotion at work and am now officially middle management
I'm getting married.
Chabad called me up and ask me if I'd plan their gala welcome back event for the Rebbe

I am ecstatically happy.

He's wonderful (I dont mean Schneerson) but for the sake of the marriage having any kind of chance of surviving he will remain the elusive A on this blog. (I am yet to come up with a cutesy blog partner nickname aka mousespouse or mrs anglosaxy and am not entirely sure I want to.)

Part 2
In which she gives a leetle leetle beet more detail in whats been happening in her life and insights thereof, soon to follow (really.... I'm going to NY in less than two weeks specifically to have time to read, write, think and be creative so I promise i will have time to do this)

same old

2005-05-10T20:57:00.000+03:00

its yom hazikaron this evening - memorial day for israel's soldiers and victims of terror.

many people i know dont do anything to mark the day apart from stopping for the sirens. maybe that just means nothing publically. whos to know what they're thinking and who am i to judge. so bygones, but i guess for me an action is required and my action of choice it so go to a local ceremony in the neighborhood i live in.

i've been attending this ceremony for 10 years. it used to be held in the basketball courts just by my (now) house. now its a couple of minutes further down the road outside the local community center. i like it. its not pretentious, even slightly boring, yet familiar and warm.

i like it because its genuine and what this day is all about. community coming together to mark shared loss. the personal and the communal are mixed well as representatives from local organizations such as jerusalem municipality, youth movements and ulpan etzion offer their thoughts together as the father of a woman soldier stabbed in a terrorist incident in these very streets 15 years ago recites kaddish.

the crowd is mixed - religious and secular, ashkenazi and sephardi, rich and poor, old and young, sabras and olim. the list of some 50 names which is read out of locals people killed in action, training accident or terrorist attack since the founding of the state i sense is less diverse.

i'm not a political being so perhaps this is why this day appeals to me - this is not a day to look for solutions. its just a time grieve the craziness of it all without laying blame. as i come home to a television full of home movies about fallen soldiers and terror victims this is the time to put politics aside and just realize how much potential we're wasting.

if these brothers, sisters, sons and daughters whose lives were cut tragically short were really such incredible people then there must be many more people out there who are still alive that we need to celebrate now. and if somehow hearing their stories connects us to our country and our people lets search for more postive ways to do this daily.

Yehi Zichram Baruch

confirmation

2005-04-22T08:11:00.000+03:00

thank you lord for sending me what i needed to hear as i go into another pesach, as i hope to move from slavery to freedom.

oprah (aka new age ministress) in an interview with queen latifa just confirmed the following... and i quote

"32 is when you come into yourself and at 35 you're there."

amen!
dayenu!

nearly as inspiring as this more conventional (or maybe thats relative) pesach message that i read in this highly recommended hagaddah. dr joel ziff, says as follows:

Pesach of liberation from slavery in Egypt, which marks the birth of the
Jewish nation, also serves as a symbol for all the periods of exile and
redemption in Jewish history. As such, the Exodus represents deliverance; not
just from oppression in Egypt, but from all exiles and oppressions in the past,
in the present, and in the future. These events, which mark the turning points
in the development of the Jewish people, are also symbolic of critical points in
our own lives. As it says in the Haggadah, “Each of us is obligated to consider
ourselves as coming out of Egypt”. This transformation, the psychologist says,
is embodied in the passages we transverse as we give birth to ourselves: in
leaving home, in career changes, in marriage, divorce, in birth, sickness,
death, addiction and recovery from trauma.

Life can be overwhelming, sometimes leaving us feeling defeated,
hopeless and depressed -- in many ways feeling as the enslaved Israelites in
Egypt. Viewing our lives through the mirror of the Egyptian experience, we can
grasp onto a positive transformation through the Exodus story.

thats powerful....
get the hagaddah or apparently this book has more of the idea.

happy matza to you all!

good bye ehud

2005-04-13T22:37:00.000+03:00

today i feel israeli
and i'm sad.
there's been no terror, no outright chutzpa, no crazy financial injustice, no unbearable weather.

today i feel israeli
and i'm sad.
because ehud manor died

every now and again in any country, an icon - maybe a tv star, an author or an artist - passes away and people are really affected. not because this person was a political or religious leader determining the country's fate or direction, but because he/she was an inseperable part of their childhood, their upbringing, their moulding as a person, their very basic cultural reference.

although i've lived in israel for quite a while now, i've grown used to still being an outsider when it comes to these kind of things.
for example:

- i may know that tzipi shavit was *the* children's presenter when israelis my age were young, but her songs will never resonate with me half as much as george, zippy and bungle or even floella benjamin.

- i can sing along with danny sanderson when he performs at a purim work event and hails back to his kaveret days, but i just cant close my eyes and remember where i was when listening to poogy playing on the radio and tv.

- i can laugh at tal brody's terrible israeli accent, even after all these years, but i can't remember the thrill and excitement he brought to the country when he led maccabi to its first ever european cup championship in 1977.

but ehud manor was different.

this is the first time that an israeli cultural icon has died and i think i feel the loss like any other israeli because i really feel like i grew up with ehud manor. and not just because he wrote israel's first eurovision hit abanabi back in 1978 (although i, like any other proud, identifying and self-respecting british jew, do remember that momentous occasion.)

i will miss ehud manor because i owe my knowledge of anything musical and israeli to ehud manor.

just as i can trace my english music tastes back to journeys in the car with my dad listening to 4 seminal tapes; i can trace my education in israeli music to a tape of ehud manor songs recorded for me by a boyfriend on kibbutz back in 1990.

the tape was brit olam - a collection of ehud manor songs sung by an array of israeli music stars including matti caspi, yehudit ravitz, gidi gov to name a few. it was a varied group of songs - some slow, fast, serious, loving, joking - different to what i was used to but i listened to it fervently and as it soon became the soundtrack to my year in israel. and as i pined for israel in my first (rather miserable) year back in england i bought the next cassette in the collection and devoured it even more, together with all the other tapes i had bought by then by israeli artists that that first tape had led me to.

it was simple: ehud manor's music conjured up for me all the smells, sounds, thoughts and feelings that i associated with the country that would become my home just three years later.

later on, i would find out that he was also the huge talent behind many clever hebrew musical translations such as blood brothers, hair - which i saw with same boyfriend in the cinerama in tel aviv (except by that time we were just friends or perhaps more accurately oblivious guy and obsessed women) - and even far more recently chicago. and his talent didnt stop with music. ehud was also responsible for high quality hebrew adaptations of theater including shakespeare, harold pinter and tennessee williams.

ehud manor was one of the few israelis that one would consistently hear good things about. he succeeded in appealing to a broad range of israeli society (another no-mean feat) and he was associated with excellence and modesty, outstanding traits indeed.

through his music ehud helped me begin to understand israeli society. he also represented some of the things that i wished we saw more of in that society.

today i feel israeli
and i'm sad.
good bye ehud.

matching hairdos

2005-04-09T20:05:00.000+03:00

as i've taken an unintentional break from blogging over the last few weeks some part of me feels i owe you -- or maybe me -- some kind of explanation for this abandonment of task.

the truth is, that 'some part' is far tinier than in the past (or this past, or this past) but i was looking for a segueway to get back into things anyway. so here goes....

well actually i don't really have one -- i've been genuinely busy and thus as apparantly blog-directed creative inspiration has not sufficiently outweighed my to do list, ergo lack of post.

that said this may be a good time to confess the one detail that has affected my overall blogging in past months.

i'm seeing someone.
again i only feel a need to admit this: a) now that a decent(ish) amount has past in said venture and b) due to a sense of loyalty to my readership given posts such as this or this.

i'm not going to go into any more detail becaue i honestly dont feel the need or desire to bare all here when thank g-d i have several marvelous friends who have provided more than their fair share of 24/7 counselling services (aka wonderful commening to my f2f blogging).

i am also aware that said someone is more than happy at his lack of mention and cherishes his genuine anonymity on this blog so in the interests of more good things in the future i aim to maintain this status.

i know this is not the juicy stuff that voyeruristic blog readership (hey i'm one of them) hangs about for but sorry c'est la vie.

this is your bone, consider it thrown.

oh ok....... one more thing. but just cos i like you.

as said someone is of american persuasion , he is being slowly exposed to the depths of real british culture, part of which has been an education on the ever rivetting royal family.

so having covered the basics e.g. "will camilla ever be queen?", in light of today's historical events, let me move on and say, that despite recent evidence to the contrary (see pic) the question "are his and hers hairdos a british tradition?", has the same unambiguous answer.

NO!!!

2000 year old woman

2005-03-18T16:07:00.000+02:00

the title of this post plays on the comic genius of brooks and reiner, not because i feel i'm quite at the point in my comedy career that i can challenge these masters, but merely as some form of consolation and distraction as i pretend that the country i live in is not really as archaeic and lacking in creativity than i fear it is.

no, i do not refer to the pending disengagement, the recent yad vashem bash (although i appreciated harry's take on it), or even our drivers' ongoing success in surpassing terror in killing literally hundreds of israelis a year.

i am talking about women in israel.

my feelings as to why i think israeli women are incredibly patronised and disempowered - so much so they dont even realize it - arent too coherent but i do feel that pseudo equalities such as army service seem to blur over the fact that many, many women in israeli society put up with and even help cultivate norms that are just simply unacceptable in other sane western societies.

i'm not sure whether it's: our very low ranking (especially compared to israeli men) health status; constant patronization through advertising ( i couldnt find a link to the appauling borderline racist telma adverts for some kind of health bar but when i do i'll post it); arseholes like a former boss of mine who'd refer to a room full of seasoned female nurses and health professionals as "banot" (girls), to lack of protest ; international women's day being marked at the university by makeovers and rape crisis booths (outlining the two main roles for women in israel) or the plainly misguided attitudes of women in tel aviv who feel they can dictate whats in about being cool and single and then return home to their long term boyfriends, but i cant get over just how women in this country not only contend with fifty's style 2nd class citizenship but seem to think that its all ok and even relish their role.

why this venom today you ask?

well as i waited to have my car washed, i was reading the weekend section of the israeli tabloid yediot. i happened upon the family section which this week was all about dressing up. no, it was not a special about what to do when daddy's a cross dresser, its the fun and wacky festival of purim this week.

anyway there was an "ask it" type section in the column which literally had me gobsmacked. in translation it went something like this:

this year my daughter wants to dress up as electricity.
how can i make such a costume?
--- mother who doesnt know how to sew

dear mother who doesnt know how to sew,
simply explain to her that electricity cant put on lipstick, powder, sparkles or blusher and she will go off the idea soon enough.

there's so much to make my blood boil here but i'm afraid if i write to complain she'll (gali@yeditoth.co.il) just tell me what temperature to set my oven at to get that boil just right.

truth is, that as i write this i realize its more than the women issue that makes me mad here. this is a typical example of israeli lack of sophistication or depth. costumes in the old country were all about creativity and originality. what an amazing idea - a kid is thinking about abstract concepts like electricity. its a great lead for a parent-child discussion which could then lead to a plethora of costumes that they could make together -- dress up as a an electricity bill (that would require a huge costume of course), a pylon or how about wearing a whole vat of sparkles and daring to go abstract???

instead this wonderfully imaginitive thought is crushed by an israeli family columnist ( i assume expert, eek) eager to encourage the nightmare that we see each purim -- kids sporting unoriginal superhero or disney type costumes which have been bought or made for them by their paretns so they can keep up with joneses as they take them to parties that they dont even know why they're having.

oy, i may need to vent on this more but alas alack the sabbath calls so for now i must sign off......

funny on the inside

2005-03-16T13:50:00.000+02:00

just sent an email out trying to drum up (comedy) business for this summer and included a link to this. (which goes even further to show my schizophrenic feelings towards the anonymity of this whole thing.)

seemed fine at the time, especially as i had attached my fabulously updated flyer which included an unearthed Haaretz quote, "She stole the show" - how did i ever miss that when preparing my publicity material?

anyway am now panicked because it occurred to me that most people are far more linkclicky happy than PDF savvy so the chances are (as reflected by sitemeter logs) they've come to check this blog out. would be ok but the last couple of entries have been of the pensive variety as opposed to my often hilarious yet insightful posts.

oy woe
will they be interested in a comedienne who sometimes ponders at the set up (the non funny part of the joke) in her spare time...

oy the pressure
i cant even think of a funny way to finish this off as some form of saving grace.

bugger

wherefore to blog take 2

2005-03-08T08:01:00.000+02:00

why blog?
its a question i get asked a lot.
not that i feel that i'm such a blogger these days. or to quote a friend "proficient bloggers blog daily".

yes my non-prolific state has been an expression of the struggles i'm having about how personal i can get in these columns and if not, whats the point? how is it helping me? (ie do i need to just post stuff to entertain others). the jury's still out but meanwhile i'm going to throw out two things that relate to where i'm holding at the moment.

1) this post. i feel alot for the writer (who i know) and worry if the bizarre way of sharing in a relationship is really what things have really come to.

2) a synchronous IM conversation i had with my father this morning. (please note while obligatory chat about state of weather has been deleted it really was him that raised the topic)

Dad says: tell me you any ifdea how many people read yr blog?
LG says: theres a counter
LG says: why?
LG says: do you?
Dad says: yes
LG says: thoughts?
Dad says: vey interesting
LG says: care to elaborate?
Dad says: its a bit like baring yr soul to the world at times and at others being yr very own newspaper columnist
Dad says: do u think most who read it know who u are
LG says: yes, i think unfortunately although there are some who dont
LG says: i like to pretend that they're the majority
Dad says: is the blog you or an alter ego
LG says: in general me
LG says: which is why its not really as personal as it could be
LG says: i definitely censor myself
Dad says: how can somthing be truly personal if open to the world
LG says: as in not so much because its me but becasue people know me
LG says: i kind of regret telling people i know
Dad says: so what were you trying to achieve - just self expression or more?
LG says: i'm not sure too much thought went in but self expression was definitely part of it. my first post explains some of my thinking
LG says: its evolved though
Dad says: it wouldnt be difficult for any anglosaxon Yerushalmi to work out who you are
Dad says: after all how many people do comedy in Har Nof?
LG says: whatever
Dad says: rather like one of those diaries intended for publication except that this is instantaneous!
LG says: yeh something like that

burning desires

2005-03-08T07:21:00.000+02:00

and for today a story about self doubt.

what's your burning desire?
what things do you really care about?

wow deep questions, she thought. tachlis questions. finally someone who had stripped away all the bullshit - like what did you study at university, how many siblings do you have, were you into duran duran in the eighties? - and reached in to find out about HER.

he really wanted to know who she was, what made her tick, click - any sound, just what.
she was flattered, complimented, excited so much so she wanted to answer straight away, respond immediately, offer a waterfall of words, get closer through sharing this intimate knowledge.

but then she felt silence. words didnt come. what was her burning desire? oh come on now she must have something? what did she really care about? anything she thought of seemed trite, fake or just not entirely true. but how could she not have these? surely they must appear somewhere - on a resume somewhere or on a piece of paper scribbled down during traffic jam inspiration. she must have a raison d'etre. she wasnt just plodding through life, was she?

it didnt make sense. she'd spent the best part of the last decade trying to find herself, get in touch, relearn a healthy way to live. she felt better from it, no doubt. she was breaking the mould and going to lead life how she wanted. she'd achieved many personal victories and it was onwards and upwards. so how could she be floundering at this first pivotal test?

maybe she just wasnt there yet - hadnt tapped that far. or maybe she was living it already. or maybe ... going out on a bit of limb here... it was a combination.

she thought carefully and tried to word it succinctly. i have a burning desire to live life as i choose. a burning desure to be open to the opportunities that the universe has to offer and not be bulldozed down by self-doubt while waiting for clarity. or how about "a burning desire to live life without doubt". she was sure that some cliched email footer about dancing like theres no tomorrow said it more poetically but this worked for her.

would he understand? did it matter? did he really need for her to have clear cut answers? would he think any less of her?

at this moment in time she wasn't sure but as she read the sentence again she realized that as a first step to her newly stated goal she was willing to take the chance.

modern technology

2005-02-25T05:26:00.000+02:00

thank god i'm an insomniac in the 21st century

its 5 am on a friday morning (akin to sunday in normal countries) and i'm chatting on im with a friend in new york and another in new zealand.
if it were 2 am i would call a friend in toronto for a chat.
and of course anytime is good to write e-mails to anyone anywhere.

hardly a second in the day when i cant connect with friends

wow
i feel globally warmed

sing

2005-02-23T23:12:00.000+02:00

i went to a haredi wedding last night.

strangely enough, 130 wedding invites later I don't recall ever attending a separate wedding. (that is men in one hall, women in the other and bride and groom seated along the mechitza). nevermind, i know the bride from a part of my life where politics and religious persuasions are left at the door so i was really v happy just to show up, not judge (how gracious of me) and just mesameach et hakala (make the bride happy).

the truth is i was quite surprised how little the whole separation thing affected me. maybe because the hupa wasnt majorly separated and there was definitely a certain amount of informal mingling going on. or maybe because it was just so clearly not my crowd that i could accept this is what these people do. as abraham lincoln (and my father in autograph books) said - "for those who like this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing they will like".

actually at a wedding where you dont know anyone (apart from a couple of good friends) its quite relaxing to be among just women. and of course i will always owe something to the haredi all women scene as the first stand up i ever did was at a women's open mike night organized by a women chozer b'tshuva. a frum scene indeed, but one that gave me space and heard my voice. a space often misleadingly not available in the modern orthodox and secular worlds.

i was pleasantly reminded of my latest attempt to entertain the haredi world when just as i was about to perform my favourite wedding shtick (head first into the buffet) a beshetieled woman came up to me and informed me that i was very funny. no i hadnt dropped anything into the chocolate moose -- she saw me do my routine in har nof last month.

anyway, all that and my general good and optimistic mood of late meant that i was able to enjoy it for what it was and i was definintely looking forward to having a good dance. (at any kind of wedding i'm always good for am aerobic workout which doesnt incur the cost of a gym membership) and dance i did but that was where i did get a surprise and a little saddened.

so what that the band was on the other side of the mechitza so you couldnt hear the music as well?
so what that most of the women over 22 were either pregnant or with children?
so what if this wasnt a closed event and that men were within a few meters viewing distance?
why didnt any of the women sing?
and why couldnt they dance in more than one crowded circle?

they weren't quiet, in fact there was quite a noise, talking - to each other, on phones. standing right in the middle of the floor and talking... just not singing and v little of that crazy enthusiasm i have felt at other religious weddings. i must confess i was disappointed. i had thought that surely here was ok. here there was no kol isha "problem". here it was 100% badatz approved to sing and show simcha.

i pray it was an exception but i fear that my open mike experience may have been the exception. i couldnt help thinking that this was the true reflection of a life where women's voices are so maligned and restricted that they dont even realize it anymore.

luckily i was in a good enough space just to observe and not get angry. and i really was v grateful for that because i dont like turning someone-else's simcha into a place for venting my own angers at the world and its religious and patriarchal establishments. no i dont think women should put up with anything but there has to be a value for letting people be as they want to (or think they want to) at least at their own celebrations.

my only rebellion was that yes i did sing. i teamed up with a few rogue 17 year olds and really had fun. a few women looked at me, most of them (could have been my imagination but i dont think so) appreciatively maybe even enviously so. and i danced, as i am want to do at weddings, like i just don't care.

funnily enough while i didnt care what people thought, i hazarded a guess at what they must be thinking... whose that girl/woman? she's a little rowdy and different but she seems to mean well. ah yes she must be from neve (infamous women's seminary in har nof known to attract women from all wierd and wonderful backgrounds)

well it goes to show that not only were my acceptance skills in good working order, so was my perception because not 5 mins passed since i thought that (and made a mental note that i really must blog about this) than the nice girl on my left who'd chatted with me a bit when i danced with her and her little sister (daughter?) turned to me in the middle of the dance and asked "are you from neve?"

i said, no i'm from baka but that didnt really register with her, so i just smiled and took that question possibly for the one and only time in my life as a compliment. why? how? well because if i can manage to blend into such a setting for the sake of a friend and yet still give off clear signs that i know of life outside this world, then you know what, i dont i think i'm doing too badly.

its all relative

2005-02-15T07:03:00.000+02:00

my rosh chodesh group met last thursday (a day out i know - we are busy women with scheduling issues) as we have for the last eight plus years. the group's topics vary from month to month influenced by the person leading, the mood of the month and the phases we go through. this month - adar 1 ( a leap year month in the lunar calendar) - took us on an unexpected path which has got me thinking ever since.

note: i could easily write tonnes just about the group and its friend/family dynamic and the power of a womans group yadiayada but i'm not.

anyway thanks to the group i discovered that 2005 has been declared einstein year in celebration of 100 years since the publication of albert einstein's papers on relativity.

the connection to adar? well T, whose turn it was to run the group, is a well hidden physicist with a less hidden crush on/appreciation for mr einstein. on contemplating the concept of how every now and again (7 times in 19 years to be exact) we add a whole new month into the lunar calendar (a more wholesale approach to the 29th of february thing) T couldnt help but think about that whole time and space concept. forget the final frontier... just how bizarre is this thing called time if we can just create whole new months? why not a year, a century.

and thus T felt fit to introduce us all to e=mc2 and all that jazz. now if i got it at all, relativity in a nutshell is that time is relative and that we all experience time according to where we are. so if i'm on a train travelling 50mph and a car passes me travelling 55mph then to me its only 5 mph or something like that.

to explore the idea in more tangible terms we read chapters from a fascinating book called einstein's dreams. this fictional and highly creative book written by an MIT professor presents a group of dreams that einstein could well have had as his mind was somehow coming to grips with the relativity concept. it brought up lots of mind-bogglingideas - which i'm sure i'm going to dumb down in translation so i highly recommend you go out and read it for yourself - how would we act without memory, what would the world be like if we knew it was going to end, does where you stand affect the truth of whats happening?

stuff for deep thinking indeed ...how much of my life is subject to this same theory?

now to say "its all relative" is no chiddish (innovation) so let me remind you that the theory only really takes any kind of effect when you get near the speed of light. thus in day to day life the effect is almost completely negligible.

and thats the point for me.

there's lots of obvious relative stuff going on in my life. differences between people that i learn to understand and even appreciate. situations i learn to handle, put myself in their shoes and so on.

but then there are the rare times when it really seems like i get it. we're there together - in the experience. you saw it felt it, i saw it felt it. it was there - genuine, sincere.... there. and yet there's that tiniest nuance, so easily missed but there all the same and suddenly its different. two totally different experiences - almost undetected by the human eye. two simultaneous occurences with critical divergences.

and thats it. what you thought was perfect synchronicity has gone. in the end it may not matter. but at this point it doesnt exist. enlightening and deflating at the same time and like most things in this world totally out of my control -- try though i may.

almost sad to be so close yet so apart. take solace in the fact that to have got so close we must've been travelling at the speed of light.

early morning observations

2005-02-10T07:51:00.000+02:00

- my fingers just turned blue hanging out my washing. (i'm typing now so they can thaw a bit lest i bust a blood vessel by showering too soon) lord... this weather has to warm up, i know i came to live in israel for ideological reasons but a few years on, mild winters are welcome positive reinforcement.

- oprah must be about to launch her own religion or ministry or something. that woman talks more g-d and spirituality in one show than some united synagogue (uk) rabbis talk in a lifetime. (and she gives away stuff)

- i shouldnt be fooled into thinking that because i've been awake for two hours and been productive that this is going to last too much longer into the day. i predict a 11:35 am snorefest at my desk and heavy negotiations on deadlines with a feisty account manager at approximately 2:00pm

happy day

bill please

2005-02-03T07:11:00.000+02:00

is it my imagination or did every single utility company plus several non-utility ones just send out the hugest bills ever simultaneously?

did i really spend mid november to mid january heating a sauna in my apartment, cooking for england on all four burners, speaking non-stop on the phone abroad and locally (oh and on my mobile in the other hand), gushing niagra (or a spring in ein gedi) out of my taps, all while driving on kvish 6 (israel toll road) in a non-taxed car?

in general i'm good with bills -- paying and monitoring. i even did a personal finances course last year that really help me get organized but when the push comes to shove (and it just did in a huge push shovey kind of way) i hate paying them.

and if the obligation to pay them wasnt enough then there's all that other wierd bill behavior to really piss you off.

the great disappearing bill
the bill's due on the 10th of the month so following the wisdom of my course i only pay it on the 10th otherwise the company gets the benefit of my money (and i dont) for longer than they deserve. i spend 2 weeks with bill in bag or by my computer or somewhere memorable and then suddenly on the 10th it moves/is moved/runs to freedom. i dont know which is true and i'm really not ready to enter into the inanimate objects cant move debate cos we all know deep down based on empirical evidence and a belief in pixies that is blatantly the biggest hoax in scientific history... but all i do know is at this rate i should just automatically add another 5-10 nis to each bill i have , based on the excess charges i end up paying. grrr!

the miscalculated bill
i guess once we're throwing money at these companies anyway why should we possibly expect service at the same time. they must be far too busy counting their wads. which explains why they (whoops) add the amount you already paid last month rather than subtracting it (ha ha dorgaz gas company i caught you this time) or as is the case with the Israel water company (Gihon) they just cant seem to get round to reading the meters so they thought they'd just guess instead.

the unpayable bill
recurring offenders for this one are the israeli tv licence people. this bill may not be paid in a bank or the post office and their telephone lines are open like twice a week. what do they want me to do pay them in blood through the ER? whats more as well us charging phenomenal amounts of money even to those who dont even have a tv (but once 5 years ago they shared with a roommate who did) and despite being totally uncontactable they do manage to automatically add 10% to bills (and send out a new one) if the bill is even a sniff of a day late.

oh well time to go -- sitting here typing could be costing me money.

office robots

2005-01-24T16:58:00.000+02:00

Life at work has been challenging lately -- not that much to do with the job itself although there is enough to do but more between balancing it and whats going on out of work.

I'm basically having difficulties concentrating and probably doing my fair share of imbecilic behavior such as this

Oh dear

i hoard therefore i am

2005-01-20T07:39:00.000+02:00

i am a hoarder

i am a broad hoarder - anything from books, papers, birthday cards and plastic bags to t-shirts, laddered tights, telephones, defunct PDAs and car stero systems.

i virtually hoard as well. i save every draft of document i work on and while my e-mail at work is more organized at home my in-box and archived in-boxes are overflowing.

every now and again i do do something about it and i'd say i have most of it under control but equally frequently (or so it seems) i am reminded just why i have developed this tendency....

just in case
aka because you never know when you'll need things.

well that just happened.

spurred on by an otherwise enlightening and practical workshop on internet media given by currently jerusalem-based blogger supreme mobius, i installed haloscan comments on this blog in order to make the whole commenting process a nicer experience for all of us. but just as i was kvelling at how quickly i'd done it, as in every vh1 behind the music documentary... tragedy struck.

it seems i have lost all my comments. all those wonderful ego boosting snippets left by passing readers. those brief annotations that in some warped life accounting method total to say yay you're good!

all gone - alas - alack
...online that it is

for the revenge of the hoarders is nigh! thankfully all my comments are sent to me by e-mail as well. (a function i was beginning to question and even ... deep breath... was thinking of stopping.) so while i will have to deal with the fact that newcomers to my blog may be puzzled if not downright conned to thinking i have no feedback. I will have the proof otherwise.

phew

wired for sound

2005-01-19T20:35:00.000+02:00

its not only blogging that i'm falling behind with at the moment.

among other crucial tasks on my list has been to burn a disc of mp3s for my new car CD/MP3 player. and tonight i finally did it -- 125 tracks and the disc isnt even 75% full. in the words of a hanna barbara character - zowee!

i love music. i'm more of a fan than a performer but not as fanatical as some, although i do have an elitist tendency to walk into people's houses and go straight for their CD collection to decide if i really like them or not. (i've mellowed over the years -- all i require these days is that a person have a taste in/minor passion for music as opposed to anything too specific)

anyway i have been v excited by my new purchase not only because it was the result of actually following up on an advertized bargain from a local electrics store but because i especially love to drive with music. i think the car is unbeatably the best medium for listening to music with possible exception of the royal albert hall although there you cant just turn up the volume, sing at the top of your lungs and throw all your problems and worries to the wind.

so as the nice man was installing the player in my car a couple of weeks ago i was understandably psyched but when he made the change and handed me the old car radio tape (to add to my collection but we'll talk about my hoarding tendencies at a later date) i suddenly felt a twinge of guilt.

in the midst of my excitement i'd missed the fact that this marked an end of an era. since my walkman has long been of CD variety and not tape and my stereo tape deck hasn'tworked for years this simple car-radio-ectomy essentially meant i no longer owned any mode of listening to any of my 500+ cassette tapes.

gulp.

ok i admit it cassette tapes are not sexy and that the majority of mine have sat in a box on my balcony for the past year and a half but still i will miss them if no one else does. truth is wedged in time between vinyl and CDs they never really had a chance. (especially considering the shape propaganda of the seventies)

but even if cassettes are the pariah of the music world if you ignore minor details like questionable quality of sound, inability to not get tangled with repeated play and insufficient canvas space to create an artistic masterpiece to match the music you cant help but acknowledge their essential place in history.

i mean they are the missing link that allows us to appreciate today's technology. How much can you really appreciate the ease of CD burning if you've never sat for hours with a pile of tapes and records making a mix-tape to mark a mood, a period in time or maybe just a friendship. tapes that were made extra special by the indiosyncracies supplied by the sound of the needle on the record or the false starts resulting from a misuse of the pause button? who didnt delight the first time they found out about fast dubbing complete with auto turnover on a tape to tape machine? who doesnt stop every now and again during yet another to download or not to download debate and reminisce about similar dilemmas about recording radio one's top 30 every sunday evening?

and if it wasnt for tapes would we ever had the walkman? i remember the first time i listened to a walkman. i really felt like i was in a pop video. admittedly my second year form room would have made a poor setting for any video even in the eighties but i wont forget the sensation. you could never have done that with a record.

Walkin’ about with a head full of music Casette in my pocket and I’m gonna use it-stereo -out on the street you know-woh oh woh...

could cliff ever have written wired for sound if he was still loading up his 33s and 45s?

ok maybe that wouldnt have mattered but even the frustrations of finding a song on a tape especially on a car tape machine (it never seemed to rewind in the right direction) evoke nostaligia for me now.

no wonder i felt emotional as i held the car tape machine. for it isnt just an obsolete piece of machinery. it was thanks to the car-tape machine that i received my most basic yet most influential music education.

driving to primary school with my dad we'd work through four tapes, 5-10 mins every day as my father avoided every traffic light and used every back double possible. 4 simple tapes that have probably long since gone to that great place in the sky for broken tape boxes and sun warped cassettes but whose contents occupy a special place in my heart -- simon and garfunkel greatest hits; the beatles red and blue albums; elo - out of the blue; and a 50s and 60s mix. truly the foundations of my music appreciation today.

yep yep good times....

so i have alot to thank you mr tape machine and your cassette comrades, or to quote cliff again It’s music I’ve found And I’m wired for sound.

hope

2005-01-17T13:32:00.000+02:00

see mum, i told you i had plenty of time left.

wow science really opens up bright and new possibilities for the world... mother and child who both wear diapers.

raining and pouring

2005-01-15T20:34:00.000+02:00

my life is really busy at the moment. never rains but it pours (today's weather in jerusalem being a classic example)

anyway i'm working hard and playing hard and not just the former thank g-d. genuinely interesting and fun things to do and new and old people to see, seem to have come out of the woodwork. i think its a seasonal thing much like this country shutting down (or slowing to a halt) from early summer to after the chagim. whatever i'm enjoying it despite (or perhaps because...) of my lack of computer contact/

so thats my excuse for not blogging.

i know that there are many people with interesting lives and blogs but at times when i'm trying to feel better about myself i like to pretend that anyone who can blog that regularly is living their life a bit too virtually.

or to butcher a wise man's words...life is what happens to you when you're busy blogging other people's plans.

double figures

2005-01-10T01:19:00.000+02:00

Kamma at olah?

(lit. meaning how much do you cost?, but really cutesy Israeli slang to say how long ago did you immigrate to Israel)

Eser!

(lit. meaning 10 but in more common and less naff Israeli slang it means excellent!)

yes today is the big 10

10 years of israeli citizenship (i bought a video, fridge, microwave and 2 years of a masters degree on new immigrant rights. all still working vaguel apart from the masters)
10 years of being an adult (i spent a total sum of 6 months post college in england so i consider israel to have custody over the vast majority of my adult life)
10 years of voting in israeli elections (4 national and 2 mayoral i think)
10 years of living in jerusalem (4 apts in 3 neighborhoods not including ulpan)
10 years of working in israel (21 jobs that i can remember, 11 appearing on current resume - i've been a freelancer, not totally incompetent)
10 years of young, free and singledom in the holyland (wont list the number of dates/ significant others but have shared in close to 90 weddings in that period)
10 years of paying arnona in well todo neighborhoods (so give or take car fines and student reductions jerusalem municipality is approximately 24,000nis better off thanks to me)
10 years of speaking hebrew and too many times receiving the response - at amerikait? (no i'm british, f%^& off!)
10 years of continually making wonderful - if predominantly anglo - friends (israel's new and improved answer to family)
10 years of living my life basically

true, things have changed over ten years

-- when i made aliya the only cutting and pasting i did was in art class and e-mail was what a yorkshire man cried out when the postman came round the corner (actually he'd probably see ee-post-up but nevermind)

-- i came to israel during the hey day of peace, was in england for a wedding when rabin was shot, never made it to jordan, have had at least three work colleagues who've lost children to terror and still vehemently believe that without caring about the character and quality of the people of israel then fighting for the land of israel is a - possibly immoral - lost cause. apart from that as my method for sanity is to keep my head out of the news and into my life, i continue to never miss an opportunity to miss a political analysis opportunity.

there are also things that i haven't been doing for all ten years -- only 5.5 years of comedy, maybe 8 years of beginning to know my mind and i'd say approximately 4 years of serious clothes shopping in israel.

but that's ok because my life is a work in progress and for want of a better cliche israel is my chosen canvas.

that's probably why despite all the big promises of planning ulpan reunions and/or all night partying (could still happen on thursday, watch this space) today's celebrations have ended up being relaxed and low-key. calls to some of my ulpan peers that have also survived a decade in israel, taking elite chocolate (somethingelse that's improved since Jan 10th 1995) into work to share with my department and out to dinner tonight with a nice new friend in a proven jerusalem restaurant that too was around ten years ago.

i'm not being a partypooper, its just today i have a life that i like. that's pretty eser isn't it?

still here

2005-01-07T07:52:00.000+02:00

i'm not a news person and i dont think anyone needs my analysis or cries of disbelief about the huge tragedy and devastation of the last two weeks.

however on reflection it would be wrong and a sign that the western world is truly screwed if it was passable for me (that is ok with my readership as well as my conscience) to glide over the tsunami and carry on writing about the irrelevancies of my life.

so i choose not to.

i share harry's and lisa's speechlessness in reading this and any survivor's stories.

i think about those survivors who can't return to their lives let alone put their stories into written word.

i shudder for those children who may now become victims of something far worse than nature's ravages - the evil of human beings.

i take my hat off to australia for giving the most money and making the least fuss.

i'm proud to be part of the global jewish community whose response reflects an ingrained sense of responsibility to humankind.

i resent the fact that every lining has an anti-israel/anti-semitic cloud and applaud any steps by the international community to overcome this paralysing defect.

i realize what a warped species we are when the conspiracy theories start rolling out.

i thank god that even if i read every news article, looked at every photo, cried at every account and contributed to every appeal - my life will go on pretty much as it did before. thats not insensitive, its the truth.

we've come a long long way

2004-12-27T01:07:00.000+02:00

where were you 10 January 1995?
i was on a plane to Israel making the big A.

hard to comprehend but somehow I'm coming up to my 10 year aliya anniversary.

in the words of fat boy slim, "we've come a long long way together through the hard times and the good."

and i'm here to tell the tale - not originally a tale of rebellion,aliya is a pretty acceptable and even expectable move for a modern orthodox young woman in north west london, but somewhere along the way, israel has allowed me to discover stuff about myself that i think might have been left deep and buried had i not made the move.

so the big anniversary essay is not in this posting but i'm starting to think about it.

i think it was triggered by yesterday's shabbat walk from nachlaot to the old city, through ben yehuda. this calm and easy walk physically, evoked much emotionally in me as i was confronted by a ton of nostalgia and a detailed backdrop to my life that felt as if it was from decades ago but really only dates back to the last ten years. amid all these spontaneous trips to rehov memory i couldnt help compare my path with that of where i now really call home - jerusalem.

sounds poncey i know but its actually really incredible to me. we share lives that have been shaken unpredictably but we also share re-emergence on the other side, stronger and more alive.

this analogy may only make sense to me (and no-one else) unless i choose to explain it further. i will try and do that in the lead up to the "big day"but for the moment all that seems proper is to continue the song and say

jerusalem - "i need to celebrate you baby i need to praise you like i should"

and one more thing.... take 2

2004-12-24T03:11:00.000+02:00

oh my word too much vodka

does any body else think that globalization has become too much when three italian tenors are singing american tunes in china (see star world for details)

just a thought

LG

ps i am drinking water its just taking a while to have an effect

sometimes you just have to

2004-12-24T02:54:00.000+02:00

its nearly 3 am and i just want to say that nothing beats a night out with the girls.

i really need to drink water but before i do can i just say that i',m v grateful for fabulous friends like gabby, sharon and keren who dance like mad with me at places like yuko bar (near moshav ora). tonight was just what i needed and made me realize that i really am v happy with how life is going even if i am still rather single. tonight i was able to stave off the advances of horny young students -- take the compliment and leave the smut (and my dignity in tact).

for the record, yaniv who is studying criminology at hebrew u didnt blink when i said i was 25. wehay - i still got it even tho i have a threshold of a two year old (all i drank was 2 red bulls and vodkas but then again in this f%$&ed up economy the vodka is cheaper than the red bull and bar men have no idea of measures)

there;s nothing like being a bit drunk but happy in life for throwing your energy out there and saying praise ye the lord.

no amount of stimulants cant make me enjoy myself if deep inside i'm not happy so i guess i am at the moment.

for this i will be very grateful

one day at a time

time to press publish........

ps this is what happens when your computer is right by the door and always on.

couldn't have said it better

2004-12-23T03:04:00.000+02:00

to be fair, while failing to update my blog recently i have at least been democratic and also neglected to keep up with other blogs.

in the midst of a little catch up reading i've discovered a new blog who links to me (why thank you). i dont know who nushyman is but his (or apparently its hers as well) recent post has just saved me the effort of writing.

say hi to nushyman and find out why some israelis are our own worst and morally bankrupt enemies.

ode to women in black (apolitical)

2004-12-23T02:08:00.000+02:00

reasons to be cheerful while living in israel

number one: i get to see non holy broadway musicals performed in the holy language

on mondaynight i went to see chicago the musical in tel aviv. translated into hebrew by translator extraordinaire ehud manor, directed and choreographed by british conniseur ken oldfield and starring local icons rita and riki gal, it was rather fun.

real aficonados will wax lyrical about rita's performance as roxy (rough equivalent of a musical with bette midler - it was a gay man's dream) i actually found her a bit whiny preferring new comer maya dagan who like most israeli stage actors can also be found (soap) starring on israel tv.

what most impressed me though, was the international level of professionalism which is so lacking in other aspects of israeli life. although i've only ever seen the film, my impression was that barring the obvious language differences, the production was identical to any other production world wide. i particularly appreciated the intentionally minimalistic set which featured the orchestra sitting 0n stage taking an active part in the narrative and had most of the cast dressed in skimpy black numbers which served to effectively forge together the atmosphere of both a jail and jazz club.

of course this last effect was slightly diminished in the israeli version.

for while in other countries such costumes come in stark contrast to every day wear, here in israel a little black off-the-shoulder-off-the-thigh-off-the-midriff is standard fare for a club, shopping, a bar mitzva, an interview, work... well anywhere basically .

without wishing to sound too prudish i do think that israeli women wear unnecessarily restricted amounts of fabric. there has to be a limit to how much ventilation you need in an outfit. its easy to become oblivious but every now and again something happens to reminds you that no, its not so normal. once i was in a jerusalem cafe with my mother and a good friend and my mum lent in and whispered in classic mother type stage whisper - "dont look now but i think those women behind us are on the game!". my friend and i turned subtley and after viewing the scene for a good 5 seconds pointed out to my mother that no these were not ladies of the night, israeli women just dress that way!

i kid you not. and its not just the minimalist nature, its the colour too. a few years ago, on a work holiday with the ministry of health i was amazed by the group of secretaries who managed to go camel riding, jeeping and hiking all wearing the same type of black outfits that they wore to go out to eat and karaoke in later (and i'm not referring to footlockers special range of clothes for the late night gym freak)

lets face it, women in black in israel isnt just a political movement... its a way of life. for many israeli women the only part of their body which isnt black is their hair (its naturally black so they dye it red!)

anyway israeli fashions aside i still enjoyed the performance and heartily recommend it. i just feel that i should warn you that you may find it harder to be engaged in a scene with scantily clad women singing in sinister chorus about how they crudely did away with their lovers if you're distracted by the fact that you're sure you recognize one of them from kupat holim... or perhaps it was the bank!

so much to blog, so little time

2004-12-21T22:37:00.000+02:00

.

isnt the brain is an amazing thing?

after nearly a month of self-confessed absolute blankness, where I actually thought that i'd finally exhausted my lifetime quota of new ideas (you know just like those days when you wake up with a sore throat and you literally can't imagine ever having a larynx that wasn't carpeted with wall-to-wall sandpaper) , the last 2 days have been chocka with -- ooh must write about that -- kind of feelings.

so here goes.... but i'm rationing them now in sensible joseph-famine-type style

not yet

2004-12-19T01:24:00.000+02:00

thanks for the concern guys

just still a bit blocked (creatively rather than physically although with the freezing weather of jerusalem i'm sure a cold is just round the corner)

maybe its the fact that i've performed 4 times in a month which is normally my yearly average. my body cant really handle it.

i am (alas) talking comedy. i have another two dates coming up in 2 weeks time (again comedy) and i'm beginning to think about my proposed open mic tour of new york for this summer.

i'm getting into the big fish in small pond or small fish in f&^%ing huge lake dilemma in my head. huge fear of failure or worse mediocrity makes doing nothing a real option.

and then theres the new job which while showing lots of wonderfully positive signs still actually needs some attention and effort.

so i feel a little bit guilt ridden re: lack of blogging. not sure why -- this blog thing is a voluntary thing after all. would probably like to just write introspective self obsessive stuff but feel need to be funny.

well i've obviously conquered that issue

ttfn

LG

don't know why

2004-12-12T23:48:00.000+02:00

but have been uninspired to write...

dont blame yourselves as an audience

i trust i'll be back soon, just popping in to say hi

happy festival of light (or as it six days in and countless doughnuts and latkes later happy festival of heavy)

LG

no comment

2004-12-01T06:10:00.001+02:00

wow i've never had so many comments for a post before - and four from people i dont know at all. that was really exciting.

so jdate/dating is something everyone finds funny - it's comedy's lowest common denominator du jour. or to put it SAT/GRE style:

ripping off jdate is to young adults as toilet humour is to the british public

or something like that
thank god i never had to take those types of exams. no - my academic abilities were assessed by the good old british essay.

jdate is laughable, discuss

anyway onwards and upwards although i do feel the need to say a couple more things connected to my last post and then that'll be it i promise

1)apology 1 - i'm not into creating a dialog in comments so thanks for writing and dont think lack of response isnt lack of appreciation, its just me. you see its not just for comments. i also have a terrible habit of receiving e-mails from people who i really like, reading them, smiling at them, getting that warm fuzzy feeling... and then never writing back. i do mean to, i just forget or dont find the time to write properly. whatever, you get the gist.

2) amendment 1 - the guy mentioned in the last post does not (as far as i'm aware) work with me. he was at my office cos i work in that kind of place that everyone in the anglo saxon community ends up visiting at some point or another. he could have been interviewing for a job, who knows. so no i won't see him regularly around the corridors but by the law of jerusalem probabilities i'm sure i will meet him again! (and no i dont work in CSM)

3) amendment 2 - apparantly that really was the standard jdate reject letter. i'm not sure if that makes me feel worse, better or just as pissed. i would say that it was a good sign that in x years (for x read quite a few) i'd never been sent it before but it does open up a bit of a pandora's box on dating etiquette: eg is it better to ignore rather than be polite?; can clicking one button to send an automated response actually be classified as being polite?; if an educated, intelligent and charismatic woman writes to a man shouldn't he at least have the decency to write back in person?! oh well.........

whats the harm in trying?

2004-11-26T09:56:00.000+02:00

it seems i've exploited the job interviewing and dating analogy too many times in my stand up routine and have angered the gods of online dating. last week i got a reject letter from jdate.

i shan't regale you with years of jdate stories as the experts do it much better, but you do need some background.

recently, after a number of years as a non-paying member with limited privileges and too many free nights i decided it was time to be proactive and pay for Jdate. at the bargain bonanza price of 300 nis for 3 months, this meant that i could now write to whoever i wanted rather than wait for Shlomi, 40, divorced with 4 kids from Bat Yam to drop me a line. so thats what i did.

i decided to go for the broader approach - i found profiles that sounded interesting, not necessarily thrilling but vaguely in the ball park. i also tried my best to ignore possible stumbling blocks including certain politicial opinions and borderline cliche essays. i really felt that afterall we are all adults now and know that whats on paper and whats in person differs naturally so its not worth analyzing every word . (oh how naive i was)

i wrote several letters out, a number answered, most not. i was ok with that - its par for the course. however one particular response really got my goat and seriously made me consider taking said goat, flying to the alps and taking maria's place in the convent.

the guy in question, who we shall call COD123 -- he gave an equally impersonal name, was according to his own description, as follows:

Strongly opinionated, but considerate – and I cook well. I have a meat-and-potatoes perspective on life, but having traveled extensively, I appreciate French wine with the meal. Though my sense of humor is readily apparent, its quality is debatable. Slightly, chronically absentminded, I learned to master acting as if I know who you are. When there are problems I look for solutions, and I find that a smile and gentle touch often go a long way. A good vacation can be spent reading interesting books or bivouacing in the mountains.

(i had no idea what bivouacing means but remember i was allowing for such faults as being a pretentious wanker so i kept reading.)

his perfect match was:

A woman who values a warm, vibrant Jewish household and has first-rate values, a keen mind, a healthy sense of self, and an outgoing personality. She is curious to learn about the world and is interested in exploring it, and she is refined. Also, having an off-beat sense of humor is key!

does this or does this not describe me? for those of you who aren't sure about my Jewish household sensibilities, if i tell you that its 9am on friday morning and i've already cooked a soup and two side dishes, would that convince you?

anyway given two mentions of humor in his essays plus the minimum requisite vital stats (age, education etc) i thought i'd write. my note was brief, witty and i thought distinctly unproposal like and non-commital...

Hi,
If I have to debate anything, a sense of humour is something worth debating. I write a blog -- http://32andthensome.blogspot. com -- check it out and see if my humour is off beat enough for you. Would love to chat if yes.
Have a good evening
L

(note i do give my full name on the site but dont think i'm going to slip up and give it here and ruin my longest attempt at anonymity ever!)

i thought at the worst the guy would say nice read but no, or maybe chat a bit about blogs and then leave it at that. instead i got this charming little ditty in my jdate mailbox.

Hi L,
Thank you for writing. Having read your profile, I do not think that we would be an appropriate match. I do appreciate the time and effort you made to contact me, and I wish you much success.
Sincerely,
COD123

i was amazed. this was truly nothing short of a reject letter. it wasn't even clear that he'd read my e-mail given distinct lack of blog reference (positive or negative) and the letter's overall automated human resources tone. i was to be sure, gobsmacked.

(Of course true to female form i managed to turn an element of this into self criticism. i began to question the possibly too blase impression my profile gives in regards to religion and the like, and so i quickly edited my "about me" section to mention more about my deep jewish identity yadiyada. whatever...)

my response was (i couldnt not, for the sake of womankind)

Wow thats a professional reject letter you have drafted there. Complete with impersonal name.
Shame, I guess you were innundated with resumes
Good luck with your search
L

curt and possibly too polite - a good friend said that i should have changed the second line to read "Shame, I guess you've received many of these letters yourself". but whatever, that was it as far as i was concerned. COD123 didnt write again and i spent the rest of the week trying to work out how to fit in a piece in my routine about jdate reject letters and men who cant even give out their real names.

shame i didnt.

this week's comedy came and went, and as with every performance i wondered whether maybe there'd be some guy in the audience who wouldnt be put off by a woman on stage and actually be attracted by it. (its happened before i'm proud to say). i even had a slight fantasy about COD123 turning up to the show (jerusalem is a small place) and leaving in depression at the opportunity missed, returning alone to a sad 70s decor katamon apt to flagellate himself for hours for his stupidity and arrogance.

anyway...
a couple of days later i was wandering the corridors at work and i bumped into this guy who looked vaguely familiar. we both looked at each other and i just couldnt place him but then he said -- i know you, cos you did the comedy the other night. quite used to such an encounter, i made my normal quip about "why dont they ever introduce the audience to me" and asked him his name -- David Cohen. He was complimentary about the show, we chatted a bit and then i directed him on his way.

and that was it until this morning when a stroke of creative genius sparked by some excellent left brain activity of chopping vegetables for aforementioned soup made me check COD123's jdate profile again. i looked at the picture and it was none other than David Cohen. i wasnt sure, but it made sense -- COD - David Cohen.

i couldnt believe it -- the guy had even had a chance to reprieve himself and failed abysmally. i checked his profile again but there was definitely no mention of lack of balls.

still not 100% sure i asked my flatmate if she knew a David Cohen (his real name is slightly less ubiquitous) and she said yes and photo-ID'd him. in fact she confirmed my initial intuitions about the guy which i had so sincerely ignored in the spirit of giving it a try.

so what have i learned?
- trust my intuition
- be cynical or be disappointed
or maybe
- its time jdate saved us all some anxst and got user reviews!

shabbat shalom!

i'd like to accept this award....

2004-11-22T06:43:00.000+02:00

after all the moaning, griping and neuroses, nights like last night remind me why i bother to do this. (alas, no, i'm not referring to the jerusalem dating scene)

i performed comedy last night in j-town, my first public performance since March 2003 and it was wonderful.

i would probably be more descriptive and emotive had i not skipped supper due to nerves, had a smirnoff ice to give me dutch courage before the show and a huge glass of wine afterwards and got rather tipsy. i sound like a wuss but i came home singing and declaring love to my friends, flatmate and most of the cars and trees in the baka area. that would have been ok if it wasnt for the fact that despite two bowls of chicken soup at midnight i developed a splitting headache by 1:30am, slept for maybe 3 hours and then was woken up by drink-induced insomnia at around 5:30.

ho hum

they say that alcohol is a mood enhancer and its so true. there are only two routes to leave the stage after a comedy performance --- flying or via the depths of hell (even though the differential in audience reaction is by no means as wide-ranging). and as my experiences can testify drink only goes to sharpen these extremes.

last night, thank god, i took the runway not the down elevator. it was a packed room with a good spirited but by no means lame crowd. i really enjoyed myself on stage and without wishing to sound too much like a sanctimonious oscar recipient i was just so grateful that i was able to do that. i am continually amazed by peoples reactions. i am apt to take the stance that if i can do something it really can't be so difficult. and yet apparantly making people laugh is.

i also felt an incredible sense of family (perhaps thats the wrong word given my critique of said social unit in my routine) with the jerusalem audience. i'm performing on wednesday night in tel aviv. if i can find even a fraction of that kinsmanship with the crowd there, then i should be ok.

oh well, must go now. no-one has ever responded to my stand-up with the line "dont give up the day job", but still, i havent yet summoned up the courage to do that quite yet. JFTT.

this explains a lot

2004-11-19T07:49:00.000+02:00

so tony's finally done it.
the british parliament just banned fox hunting in england.

this is big. after all the british upper classes wouldn't be where they are today if they hadn't gone out on the weekend with daddy and his pals and shot a few rabbits and foxes.

putting class struggle, animal rights and country/urban population tensions aside, the way this bill was passed is far more revealing about the british psyche than understanding the english country gentleman's fetish for breeches and jodhpurs.

it was all because of the parliament act of 1949.

bit of background (although i recommend you go here to get the full picture.)

parliamentary bills in the uk can only be passed if they are approved by the house of commons and the house of lords. the house of commons is made up of 659 members of parliament who are voted in by their constituents - the electorate - the public. the house of lords is made up of life peers (appointed by the queen) and heriditary peers although thanks to recent reforms only a small percentage can still vote.

in order to curb the house of lords' ability to keep a bill from being passed the parliamentary act of 1949 was introduced. this means that in the case of most commons bills (excluding financial stuff), the lords can hold up a bill they disagree with for about a year but ultimately the elected house of commons can reintroduce it in the following session and pass it without the lords’ consent.

before thursday, the 1949 parliament act had been used only three times:
1) to allow british courts to try nazis suspected of war crimes (1991)
2) to change the electoral system for selecting representatives to the european parliament (1999)
3) to lower the age of consent for homosexual sex (2000)

and now its been used a fourth time to ban foxhunting.

so the way i understand it... britain's elite feel most threatened by animals, gays, jews or europe

nice...

fickle fear

2004-11-18T01:09:00.000+02:00

this is me sky diving over wanaka in new zealand. 9000 ft drop - 30 seconds free fall - the guy behind me is jan. fabulous, fanstastic, amazing - an exhilarating experience which you can read about in my travel journal.... but not yet.

why?

well because obviously i am using this photo as a trigger for an entirely different discussion and not to hark back to adventures past.

oh, ok

so my question is this. why do i have no fear (or negligible amounts) when it comes to skydiving, rollercoasters, light aircrafts planes (as small as a 2 seater), microlytes, paragliding or anything airbound but the thought of failing in front of an audience, of not delivering the perfect performance, of not being entirely original and new each time, paralyse me with fear?

i just came from a meeting with two fellow comedians in preparation of the comedy nights we have coming up next week and to discuss the real possibility of performing regularly and i am ashamed of how negative i was. my fear of not being good enough is projected on to any possibility of actually getting the practice i need and moving to making comedy a larger part of my life and i found myself shooting down any optimistic suggestion. luckily the organizer has a thick enough skin to ignore my blocked artist sabateur streak but i have to go home with it.

what am i scared of? of actually following a dream, or even just admitting to it? why am i so fearful of just talking when i can take real physical risks so lightly?

(to be honest even as i write this i'm worried that i havent posted a "funny" post for a while so maybe i'm not doing this right either)

as any good therapist or even Dr Phil (who is fierce competition for Oprah at the moment for providing with my daily pre-work sob) would say - asking why i feel a certain way is a thankless and pointless quest. I need to accept my feelings for what they are and deal with them.

alright then, here's some positive affirmations
-- i hearby embrace my fear, recognize it, validate it and tell it to f**k right off.
-- i will be very funny on sunday night even with my old material -- it made you laugh before so you'll laugh again, but this time harder
-- i am open to all the opportunities that come my way - because i deserve them

ok better stop this touchy feely stuff, before they strip me of my british citizenship

;-) LG

knowing who I am

2004-11-16T17:50:00.000+02:00

as i casually and narcistically blog my thoughts, moans and aspirations about who i am and who i want to be, it rarely, if ever, occurs to me that to know who i am --- who my parents are, what their families were like, my family background/heritage/legacy, whatever--- is a luxury not shared by everyone.

Yaakov Shai or JAKOV SCHENKOLEWSKI is my friend's father in law. he is a holocaust survivor who literally doesn't know anything about his family. He doesnt know his parents names or even his exact age.

read his profile.
forward it to anyone who might have a lead.
or just meditate for a minute about everything you know about yourself and be grateful

it's not easy being green

2004-11-13T19:13:00.000+02:00

tonight as I walked down to our local community garden with a pail of decomposing vegetable and fruit scraps to add to the compost bin I realized that I've becoming unrecognizable environmentally friendly of late.

In addition to my compost collection:
-- I try my best to recycle plastic bottles and newspapers
-- Some of my favourite clothes come from clothing swaps with friends
-- I've dated at least three divorced men (.......well its recycling)

I think I'm tom and barbara's lost love child

(watch bbc prime at 7pm on sundays if you dont get the reference)

it's my write

2004-11-11T07:04:00.000+02:00

in october 2001 i gave up a job in hi tech.

true, the writing was on the wall for the company i was at, but at that point my job was still there, i just didnt want it. i needed a break. i took redundancy pay and decided to travel.

my literal traveling was for four months but the journey into the rest of my life is three years and counting.

it is not my intention to present a full account and analysis but i describe the main motif as: trying to find out who i am; what i want to do; what i can do; and to follow my instinct as best as i can.

one strand of this journey of self-discovery has been my writing.

i was always the scientist of the family - other family members had the literature and dramatics specialities covered. five years ago i began performing stand up comedy (a story that deserves its own blog post) but when i was traveling i discovered a desire to write and document. i spent four months with notebook by my side and wrote in-depth and may i say even insightful (if long) travelogues home to friends and family.

i wont pretend that since then i've had this meteroic rise to fame as author extraordinaire but it lit the spark

its been baby steps -- a couple of travelwriting gigs, a newspaper article about my comedy, several freelance grantwriting jobs. the point is i've discovered something i can do and that if i choose to i can nurture.

and one key step in my process has been realizing that just as with my comedy where i dont want to organize the event i just want to perform.... i dont want to be the organizer, coordinator or manager facilitating others at work anymore either.

so thats why i'm really excited to say that i just got my first full time writing job! it's where i'm working already and its mostly grant writing with some descriptive pieces but it's 100% writing!

i feel really good about it... and this blog... and the comedy i will be performing in a couple of weeks time (organized by somebody else - yay!) because it just seems right and where i'm supposed to be...

just for today

want to read my travelogues? check out the special blog i set up: less than 32 and traveling.
interested in nurturing your own talents and creativity? read this book: the artists way

have you got a cold or are you just unenthused to see me?

2004-11-07T23:39:00.000+02:00

So if you've readabout my insomnia then I guess you're ready to hear about my cold tendency.

no of course i am a wonderfully warm person... i just sneeze alot... and oh i blow my nose. doesnt sound too attractive i know but get over it, there's more to life than mucus.

sometimes its allergies but today it just crept up on me. this morning i left the house speaking and breathing like a normal person. this evening i sound like my nose ring has mutated and blocked up both my nostrils, i have a nose that is running for england and i am to tissues what pigpen is to dust and dirt.

by the way i pronounce it tiss-you not tishew. blame my oldest friend's mother who together with her daughter decided to continue where apparantly my mother had left off or given up and teach me how to be a refined young lady at the age of 6. dont think it worked but atleast now i know that horses sweat, men perspire and ladies glow. (i think i may be developing a fever cos now in addition to snorting i am glowing something rotten)

i remember when i first got hayfever at the age of 9. it was so much more exotic than my runny nose that had basically lasted my entire (then) short lifetime. i had secret ambitions that i might become a world record holder after roy castle (z"l) played his trumpet really loudly on record breakers for this girl who couldnt stop sneezing. i never checked it with the judges but between 13 march 1981 and 13 march 1982 i sneezed 4334 times. ... now that's dedication.

over a decade of high addiction to triludan hayfever medication meant that i was of course delighted and tribulated to hear that for all intents and purposes my drug of choice had been discontinued in the uk although i'm not too sure whether it was for bona fide health reasons or the health of her majesty's health service's coffers. this and the desire to reconnect with nature and live in denial led me to going pretty much cold turkey. as the lord continues to bles the air of jerusalem it seems to have worked although occasionally an emergency cat situation gives the turkey a run for its money.

so thats basically it, although in case we ever meet up i must confess to being a heavy breather. and i cant promise to confine it to phone calls when you need excitement - it's a 24 hour thing. not too obvious otherwise i'd really be a recluse but just enough so that i'm quickly detected if i fall asleep in the cinema and can regale such embarassing situations as my first driving test. stopping at a traffic lights the tester asked me if i wanted to open the window. it was april in england (i.e. still freezing temperatures) so the answer was really no but as i'd just executed a very dodgy three point turn i didnt want to argue. i rolled down the window but could see he was still staring at me. after a while i realized what was going on and said "oh no, i always breathe like this" at which point the bastard told me to close the window and then went on to fail me on three different technicalities. what a bogeyman!

thats about it....... watch out for my next installment -- career asthma for beginners or an asthmatic with bronchitis' guide to amusing friends through hilarous impressions of their cars not starting.

my name's LG -- gezundheit!

out of petrol and appreciation

2004-11-03T13:35:00.000+02:00

i hate those 'only in israel' lines.

personally i'd be willing to forego every taxi driver who wants to set me up with his nephew, every matza pizza with fake shrimps and even my right to ask people what they earn, for some good old mundane customer service, a decent salary and the ability to buy (and use) a car without crippling myself financially. after all, why does it have to be one or the other? surely a truly jewish state should be one where there is both an equitable balance of wealth and neighbors who will look out for you.

why do i bring this up? well with all my moaning for israel just to be normal already and to stop putting idiosyncratic niceties on pedestals, it seems i may just be taking some things for granted.

last saturday night, on return from a weekend with friends in the netanya area, i found myself out of petrol (gas) 1.5 km away from the Sha'ar Hagay/Bet Shemesh junction of Road 1 on my way back to Jerusalem.
the reasons for this mishap are not worth going into but suffice to say when a broken petrol guage costs 600 nis to mend (and that was what it cost 2 years ago) in the current economic climate one may be loath to make the payment, preferring to rely on the kilometer counter instead.

having found out that my car does more or less exactly 400km to the tank and that my tow service charges 170nis call out fee plus the price of the petrol to come to the rescue, i decided to walk the 1.5km down the highway and cross over to the petrol station on the other side to get the needed fuel. the fact that it was dark (it was 8pm) or that in another country a woman walking alone along the side of the road could be in considerable danger hardly occured to me. i was too chuffed over the fact that this time (yes, i know, no comment) i had a water bottle in my car that could be used to be cut and moulded into a funnel for the petrol.

i had hardly walked two mins until a car stopped ahead of me and reversed back. the driver opened the door and enquired what was wrong. i got in, again without a beat (the car had gush katif stickers so while i knew straight away that we were politically incompatible, i had no suspicion that he was a terrorist crusing for an opportunity). then this nice nameless man dropped me the distance i needed and before i knew it i had crossed one of israel's main highways and was at the petrol station.

while i was having an empty window wash container filled up with petrol a driver asked me directions to the town of ofakim. not altogether altruistically i told him what i knew and tagged a request for a lift back down the road on to the end of my helpful answer. he agreed straight away, even waiting and holding off his journey until i had been served.

all in all, what could have been an endless nightmare was no more than a 15 minute setback leaving me with a wonderfully warm feeling of community and self-sufficiency. and i hardly blinked.

could this have happened in another country? that may be irrelevant. more important to be grateful that it can happen in the country i call home. after all if life is a journey and not a destination, it would seem advisable to look out onto the road and appreciate the view along the way.

end of life delusions?

2004-10-29T05:31:00.000+02:00

is it just me or did arafat's advisors know the end was nigh when he started asking for Big Ears and to be taken to the ToyTown hospital?

one blind mouse

2004-10-29T05:24:00.000+02:00

my very annoying (computer) mouse has been going through a temperamental time so when i have had any energy or time to blog recently its put me off.

sorry

i know a bad workman blames his tools but i'm sure there must be a different rule for a workwoman and her animals (kind of)

love

fake awake

2004-10-19T05:05:00.000+02:00

it was only going to be a matter of time before i wrote this post. its 3:40 am and i've woken up restless and my mind is buzzing. i'm awake but i dont feel properly alive....

yes folks, welcome to another bout of my irrepressible insomnia

as long as i can remember i've had problems sleeping.
-- age 8 disturbing my parent's dinner parties by coming downstairs repeatedly asking for a glass of water
-- being a child with exzema - sitting scratching on the floor in the doorway of my bedroom
-- stage whispering to friends staying over "are you awake yet?" until they were.
-- coaxing my light on a timeswitch to just come on already at 6:45am shabbat morning.

[maybe its genetic -- i dont think my father has ever slept later than 5am... except of course for shavuot tikun leil (all-night learning marathon) where nothing beats the rabbi's lectures for heavenly hypnotic powers]

i dont recall much about my sleeping patterns at university but since i started my working life sleeplessness is normally a sign that somethings up. worries, fears, ill ease, apprehension can all affect my body's ability to rest whether the feelings are renting space in my conscious or subconscious. (even happy events can take their toll... in the lead up to my sisters wedding when i was staying in a suite in a 5 star hotel i averaged at 4 hours sleep a night -- it took a good 2-3 days, a posh massage and my futon until i returned to regular sleep patterns)

its a viscious circle -- i'm unhappy/worried/concerned -- need all my energy to cope with the problem and then i cant sleep. (i normally wake up in the middle of the night rather than not fall asleep). after a night of insomnia i have no energy which puts me on a downer for the day -- makes me more worried/concerned/not happy and my mind buzzes even more. and while i cant sleep it doesnt mean i dont feel tired. theres nothing worse than facing a challenging day ahead with a subtle headache twinned with dull aching all over your body and eyelids that feel like they're being kept open by sky hooks.

nerves are also a major culprit in the no sleep crime. weeks before a performance when i need every ounce of energy to fuel my comic genius i find myself counting more sheep than punchlines.

occasionally its just a case of too much sleep the night before -- you'd think if i had too much sleep then as long as i sleep the required remainder the next night i'd feel fine in the morning but sadly this never balances out. no, it doesnt work like that -- there's no credit carry over and inevitably a miscalculation on shabbat afternoon kips can bugger up any new week.

of course over the years i've learned good coping techniques - dont fight it, get up and do somethingelse for an hour or so. often thats enough and the benefit gained from whatever i've done instead is worth the sleep deficit (my nightmare is to have slept too much before Yom Kippur and to wake up in the middle of the night and be unable to read, watch TV or eat...) but when its down to matters of the mind i am reminded why sleep deprivation isnt just like chinese torture -- it is chinese torture! its like some psycho has locked me in a cinema from hell and is subjecting me to repeat screenings of "I know what you did last summer (and this is what you should have done or maybe this instead or how about that or why didnt you think of the other).

on such nights any sleep i do get is very sketchy and i'm never too sure if i've actually slept until i realize that i couldnt have got to work this morning (in Jerusalem) just in my underwear via Euston Square station and anyway the Metropolitan line doesnt go via the Alps or anywhere underwater and why would the Makolet man be on my train anyway? (While I have problems sleeping, once asleep my dream are vivid, in technicolor and highly memorable)

1998 (i think) saw my first prescription for a valium derivative sleeping pill. and its probably been a two or three years since they've stopped having any kind of effect. a general fear of chemical dependence coupled with laziness prevents me from getting anything stronger. besides i didnt wait for this article to realize that somethings are better talked through than pill-popped. instead i've discovered a homeopathic cure -- lavendar oil. i sprinkle a few drops on my pillow and unless things are really stressful i can conk out for the night. its actually really good and if the price i pay is waking up smelling like grandma, then so be it. only problem is, it works best when i can pre-empt it (eg i will most probably use it tomorrow night) but it doesnt work so well on the spot as it were.

ok, its 5:00 am now and i seemed to have distracted myself from thinking about the burning issue (and the strategically placed mosquito bites) that woke me up, for over an hour and a half. plus i've managed to check something off my to do list (update blog). life could be worse.

i'm going to attempt to go back to sleep (the little thats left). if you're still awake maybe you should check out this site

good night!

i knew it

2004-10-16T21:00:00.000+02:00

Hey that Maoz felafal bar I found in Barcelona in February was Israeli owned
I'm shlapping nachus retroactively.

miniature thinking

2004-10-11T20:44:00.000+02:00

I am sensitive to the fact that my relationship with Israel -- my national homeland, my spiritual center, my residence of choice, my 4 slowly-closing-in walls -- is becoming more passive aggressive by the day. While in the bottle factory of life my label would be something like moderate left, religious Zionist, in reality I wonder that maybe my habit to bemoan the many ills of Israeli society while taking very little positive action has more to do with my toilet training than any real impetus. (I am sure by the way that i am not alone in this projection tendency but thats a topic for another rant.)

I mention this because this attitude seems to colour my every experience and it can get a bit heavy. Of course I am no position to really want to correct this angst seeing as it fuels much of my comedy routine and anyway (more) therapy is just another luxury that the average Israeli salary does not allow.

Which leads me in more ways than one, to my first visit to Mini-Israel last week with my parents. This is one of Israel’s newer tourist attractions which purports to show you the best sites in Israel all within 60 green dunams (60,000m2). My immediate question is whether Israel could get any smaller and if tourists could get any lazier but as sadly the answer to both questions is – yes, probably – let us move swiftly on.

Having never been taken to Disney land or World as a child (another matter of discussion with the therapist when the lottery pays up) the only international comparisons I can bring are British – Looking at Bekonscot (a highly detailed Model Village a fond favorite among generations of British children) and Miniland at LegoLand (famous sites of Europe built in Lego) I would say that Mini-Israel falls pleasantly somewhere between.

The park features a good array of familiar landmarks for those who have traveled Israel as well as few of those places that I swear I only knew existed growing up through that Israel card game where you have to collect sets of four – things like Capernaum, Dormition Abbey and Mann Auditorium. In addition to specific sites the park also includes a fair share of generic Israel such as trains and roads, houses under construction and a kibbutz. I especially liked the inclusion of those huge life size (in miniature obviously) three dimensional commercials that originated with the huge kinley cans on the way into Ben Gurion airport and now decorate the side of the Ayalon highway.

[I was once told in an interview for a job at some PR company that this concept is an Israeli “patent” which is now being marketed around the world. Well duh, this is hardly a modern Israeli innovation. What was the 12 spies biblical huge grape stunt if not a precursor to outsized Shoko bags, yoghurt pots and washing machines?]

In short the park is really more than pleasant and definitely an outing fit for all the family. Of course not everyone is privy to the personal guided tour that I was fortunate enough to have –“How Israel has or has not changed since my parents honey moon”. Don't worry your own knowledge, the hirable earphone commentary or the site’s guidebook will suffice for the rest of you.

While I recommend a visit I’d just like to take this opportunity to point out some omissions that I noticed and offer explanations where possible.

The Security Wall – It was bit unnerving to be “viewing Israel” as if there were no such thing as land controversies in our grand little country. In particular “the wall” as a new addition to the landscape was conspicuous by its absence.
Reason for omission The wall would have been far too expensive to build and the park would have been bankrupted were it included

Most of the Hebrew University site – Only the Law School is featured. Although this may seem to reflect the only important part of the university in the eyes of Jewish parents it did seem strangely alone.
Reason for omission Hebrew U’s award winning building was omitted for the same reason for its award – the builders were unable to find their way around

The Masorti Kotel – The only men and women found praying by the Kotel were in their own respective sections and Robinson’s arch was highlighted for archaeological reasons only with nay a "woman-at-the-wall" to be seen.
Reason for omission Nothing special apart from the normal inertia and non-pluralistic nature of Israeli society. Interesting note though, if you press a button by the side of the wall the figures begin to shockel (sway and pray). Apparently that’s how it works in real life too.

Terminal at Ben Gurion - The airport was represented by the runways, tarmac and planes only, with no terminal or duty free to be seen.
Reason for omission Mini-Israel was only opened in 2002 thus we cannot expect the terminal to be ready until at least 2006.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre– Considering the abundance of Christian sites , the absence of this central landmark (and any reference to the Via Delorosa) is rather surprising
Reason for omission As the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth was also missing it seems that the park owners were too wussy to deal with the complications of including Christian sites with contested ownership.

Yuppy housing on Kibbutz land –Time stands still on the kibbutz model with communal weddings and harvest festival celebrations holding their ground over privatized laundries and old kibbutz houses open for yuppy and student rentals.
Reason for omission The decision to offer a nostalgic view of the kibbutz came after owners feared that a true to life model of a kibbutz would be sold off to lucrative land developers within 2 years. Note: Some modern elements did creep in as the wedding featured seemed suspiciously not be of kibbutz members but of city dwellers at the kibbutz's gan iru'im (events hall)

My Office – Without revealing too much, my place of work is featured at Mini-Israel. On close examination however I discovered that my actual office was missing from the model.
Reason for omission I don't need to go to work anymore – instead I can spend my days following my real dreams, writing, creating, developing my comedy and plans for world peace and ….. hello hello hello WAKE UP LG!

local heroes

2004-10-11T19:37:00.000+02:00

last friday i quietly shlapped nachus when i personally knew two of the people behind Haaretz' anglofile main feature articles . while this is not so strange in the small village that is jerusalem i kind of liked the serendipity that beverley and grayson appeared in the same edition.

while you couldnt choose two people who were further apart in political stance, feminist and social ideology, religious observance and marital status they do have three things in common
1) They are both 33 (and thus slightly senior to ms 32andthensome).
2) They are gutsy members of my generation who are passionate about all they do including doing their bit for the "jewish single crisis".
3) I was an early guinea pig for both their enterprises although i shan't reveal at this stage which has brought me more pleasure and satisfaction.

on a level seating

2004-10-05T02:39:00.000+02:00

I digress from my task of finally catching you up with my Berlin adventure to bring you proof that there is still a remnant of egalitarianism in Israeli society.

Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you the last bastion of minimalism, non-materialism and general subsistence sans Ikea........

.... The white keter plastic chair.

Tonight I attended a fabulous concert by local rock singer Yehudit Ravitz who performed in the remarkable desert setting of Nachal Tzin at the southern most tip of the Dead Sea. Surrounded by rocks and sands that pre-date Abraham or any of your favorite dinosaurs I was thrilled by the powerful combination of scenery and music, the wonderful mood of a truly heterogeneous audience…. and the abundance of white keter plastic chairs

Yes, this utilitarian (well to those with non-child bearing hips) mode of bottom placement is ubiquitous in the Israeli landscape, irrelevant - so it would seem - of class of clientele. I personally have spotted them at concerts (for the audience and artist alike), government offices, pubs, restaurants, election rallies, army checkpoints, synagogues, weddings and tv shows…to name but a few. I am almost inspired to launch a competition for the most bizarre setting and/or use of this throne of the masses. (A subconscious call back to Esther Rantzen’s shopping trolley search in the 80's, perhaps?)

While the cheap and cheerful value of the product is self-evident I am still amazed that:
a) this particular model should have such a monopoly on the frugal seat market
b) so many people in a country with no fear of overdraft and buying well beyond their means, see fit to be so parsimonious when it comes to matters of the seat

Is this a beacon of light in a tunnel of capitalistic darkness and thus the ultimate “keter malchut” (throne of kings) or is portable chairware merely the red-headed step child of the furniture world doomed never to advance?

Grab a chair and lets talk about it

and one more thing....

2004-09-29T07:04:00.000+02:00

how come that I have managed to stay single and still become my mother?

this morning I tidied and cleaned my apt - because the cleaning lady was coming.
for my next trick I will place random yet personally valuable items collected from around the apt at the bottom of the stairs and tell my flatmate that if they're there by the time I get home from work they're going in the dustbin.

see

i told you i'd be back

telling it how it is

2004-09-29T01:19:00.000+02:00

just come back from pre-chag party on the rooftops of Jerusalem. it was a regular jerusalem shindig -- nice breeze, ok music and police arriving on the dot at 12.30 because thats the one time police ever respond seriously to a complaint in this country. yes it was about average in everyway including the regular gender party ratio -- approx 70% women, 30% men.

dont worry i'm not going to spend my time moaning the well-rehearsed complaint of quantity imbalance compounded by dearth of quality. but rather i'm just going to tell you how it is:
- it's sad
- it's unfair
- it's confusing
- it's illogical
- it's disheartening
- it's draining
i know so many wonderful women who are single. and while we prove daily that our lives are multi-faceted and made for far more than just husband-hunting, at the end of the day we shouldnt have to retract our ideologies just to admit we dont want to be alone.

yes yes you can tell us that "marriage isnt simple either/doesnt solve anything" and "that it only takes one" till you're blue in the face but that doesnt negate the fact that it's just wrong that it has to be this way. i see fat, thin, evil, lovely, friendly, ugly, wierd, intelligent women with mates. it makes no sense that they found and others havent. it may only take one but the energy spent looking or being cool by not looking, preferring to be found, trying again and again, erodes into your essence over the years. for an honest share on the topic read noa's recent brave and raw posts.

i'm not crying or feeling depressed as i write this. i'm feeling surprisingly lucid and bright about life. i just feel like i'm stuck in a nightmare quotient screw-up where the authorities have to regrettfully announce that due to faulty calculations life-partners on earth will have to be rationed.

i'm sure within the week i'll be back to using my singledom as comedy material but just for today i'd thought i'd tell it how it is.

make ’em laugh (and cry) in Berlin – part I

2004-09-25T23:51:00.000+02:00

As a good omen for the other resolutions I made this year I’ve finally sat down to share with you one of the real impetuses for getting this blog up – a 3 day visit I made to Berlin this August.

While I traveled essentially for a comedy performance I also had a chance to stay with a friend in the center of Berlin. Both components of the trip had rather profound effects on me so as to give them their fair due I will spread them out over two installments. Here goes with part one…

Stand up in Germany.... how did it all happen?

Two months ago out of the blue I got a phone call from a Sochnut shaliach in Frankfurt asking me to perform stand up comedy at the European Union for Jewish Students’ Summer University. After clarifying that the performance would be in English, that it wasn’t solely for Germans and that my act was only half an hour (1.5 hours is a stretch even for Jerry Seinfeld) we had a deal.

Thus followed a month of excitement (for a trip abroad), relief (that I had news to share at a family event in September that would put them off the “how’s your social life?” line of questioning) and total trepidation (about performing in front of an audience who neither shared my mother tongue or country of residence). To clarify, the “university” (which is really like a summer camp for young adults) is all in English and the majority of the participants speak English far superior to my French, Italian or even Hebrew. That said there's much more to language than vocabulary. It essentially meant that I had to remove all subtle word play, any pop culture references and pokes at the linguistic challenges of the Anglo Saxon aliya experience (laughing about the impossibility of learning the Hebrew language doesn’t quite resonate with an audience who speak an average of 4 languages fluently each!)

I was to appear as part of the Israel experience day within the week long program. Due to the reality of my own Israel experience I had limited days to take off from my “real” job so I left Israel 3am on Thursday morning, arrived in Berlin and performed 11:00 pm that evening. I arrived at the campus just outside Berlin after being driven from Schonefield airport by Eduard a Russian/German driver together with the popular Carlebach band Reva L’Sheva and ALL their equipment. Thanks to a roof rack, a kline yiddush and poor Eduard’s willingness to drive at the embarrassing speed of 80 km/ph (there is no speed limit on the autobahn) we got there in one piece albeit with ear drums slightly challenged by Eduard’s passionate taste for Russian klezmer jazz.

I had about ten hours to observe the audience and really panic about whether I’d pitched my act ok. As part of this I attended one of the sessions - a panel of Israeli and EU representatives chaired by a Swiss girl who told the audience that she was the daughter of an Israeli who’d married out in Switzerland. The discussion was something about relationships between Israel and the EU and while not being the most riveting of sessions it definitely gave me food for thought.

I particularly enjoyed it when one person got up and spoke about Europe being one of the world’s powers and thus potentially highly influential in affecting Israel’s position in the world. Agree or not, I’ve been living in an U.S. obsessed Israel for nearly a decade and working for a very patriotic American organization for the last year – so the mere suggestion that the world could exist without the good old United States was refreshing at the very least.

I was both encouraged by the intelligent and positive attitudes expressed by the participants and disgusted by the typical primitive Israeli response to questions of any caliber – all variations of the wildly out of date "Why don't you come and live in Israel and make the difference?” answer. It especially saddened me to hear that response following a comment from Daniel from Sweden who I later found out had lived in Israel for a number of years. Daniel suggested that Israel should not need to be sold to young Jewish professionals like himself but rather should be aspiring towards quality on all levels (as Sweden apparently) and thus sell itself through attraction not promotion.

I couldn’t agree more. Just think what that would do for Israelis themselves, never mind Jews in the Diaspora, if we could feel part of a state that aspired to be a true “Or La Goyim, light unto the nations” striving towards the highest standards for its citizens rather than relying on Anti-Semitism to spur immigration and security issues as a shield against ever doing any kind of forward planning.

Ho hum…

Well anyway, zipping past the annoying Israelis, after some well deserved catch up sleep and nutrition, the comedy itself went really well. True it started later than planned, the keynote speaker before me stole much of the audience’s attention span and some jokes went down differently than normal but I still managed to keep them pretty entertained for even longer than I thought. Seeing as the overwhelming reason for most people to be at Summer-U in the first place was to find a Jewish partner for life (or at least the night to start with) it was of no surprise that my dating and singles jokes went down spectacularly well. It seems it doesn’t matter if you’ve grown up religious, secular or barely knowing you’re Jewish at all, everyone can identify with picky vertically- challenged Jewish men, the perils of internet love and the Jewish obsession with Russian roulette type matchmaking.

If I was unsure at first (us comic artistes are incredibly self critical), the comments I got from people afterwards made me feel a lot more certain. They really were a nice bunch of people who while being slightly apathetic when it came to workshops partied hard at night including singing bonfire type songs 4:30 in the morning once the DJ had shut up shop. There were people from almost every European country you could name including two guys from Saloniky, Greece (brimming with Olympic pride), nearly 100 Italians and a guy called Ready from Albania. (Yes that was his name. The conversation actually went something like this – “What’s your name?”, “Ready”, “Yes, what is it?” “No that’s it… Ready” “Oh I see, oops”)

Of course I did get negative feedback from one quarter. An Israeli student (who later revealed himself to be a French Oleh of two years… ) took issue with a quip I made about economic difficulties in Israel and its connections to rates of yerida. (It was an improvised play on something Avraham Infield, the keynote speaker had said). He said it was irresponsible of me to suggest that life in Israel was so hard!!! Oh my God… the thought police had done a good job on him!

In his blind-sighted zealousness he failed to see that a) the fact that I still live in Israel ... out of choice… is pretty significant to the overall message and b) in practical terms if the majority of people leave Israel for economic reasons rather than ideological reasons maybe just maybe its something we need to acknowledge! Not sure i convinced him but whatever….

Go fight city hall!

Anyway in short the experience was v good and as far as my development as a comedienne it made me evaluate the kind of stereotypes and assumptions I use in my comedy. How do I, a British Israeli (I'm rude on the outside.... and on the inside) write Jewish humour? It raised new questions for me -- is there really such thing as shared Jewish comedy or is it just an extension of local culture? How comfortable am I with the stereotypes that I perpetuate? Have I got room to make new observations and change these or is the modern Jewish experience too splintered?

Watch this space…

which came first?

2004-09-21T01:35:00.000+03:00

just taken far too much time trying to change the bloody template on this blog. whatever happened to plain and simple html??? i'm only 3 years out of the internet bubble and i know nothing about a webpage anymore. or maybe now that i work in the real world i just dont have time to play about with these things while in the office..... oh for the days when my responsibility was looking for broken links on the "why i love jesus" guest book.

pardon???

yes i guess you didnt know that this nice jewish girl used to be the webmaster on an evangelical christian website. long and not so interesting story, second only to my stints as exam invigilator for israeli matriculation exams and carmelli bagel shop assistant, but suffice to say career paths are not really my forte or rather staying on them isnt.

truth is, this realization has been a bit of shock to the system. it's hard to admit that 14 years later i still haven't found what i'm looking for. especially since i was a bit of a square / straight A student (well not quite -- AAB -- and that was when A levels were worth the parchment they were written on)

the frustrating thing is, i dont seem to retain any pertinent knowledge.
i can remember how many weddings i've been to (101, no divorces), i know what i was doing 27 april 1986 (climbing masada) and i remember birthdays of people i went to kindergarten with (happy birthday liza kliman for the 25th) but ask me to write a bit of html or explain the principles of health education, now thats something else. bloody hell, i have a BSc in cell biology (not a BS you 'BS'ing americans) and yet i still found myself in doubt over a debate with my neighbor as to whether a rooster helps to make chicks or if a hen "does it all herself". (the answer is oh-my-god yes of course they're involved -- they just have no visiting rights afterwards. check out this link if you're confused.)

(Perhaps I should be doing this woman's job. Polly never does the detective work but she can always identify a crim by his specific MO, however far back.)

why is this? is my memory saving space for the ultimate truth or do i just need to do a major clear out of the grey cells. or is it an issue of confidence?

i question myself if i know something when i havent thought about it or been part of it for years. especially when its what other people have created, written. my memories (as opposed to memory) are something different, they are my own, catalogued by my own unique set of connectors, viewed personally by me. i can have no doubt what i saw, smelt, felt, heard, touched -- i was there. and the date thing is just a logic puzzle linking them all up

mmmm, could be something in this. after all i often meet alot of people who are totally confident in what they know and do - even though they know nothing at all.

a lesson to be learned here if i can just remember it.

fasting with enzymes

2004-09-19T21:24:00.000+03:00

so i did the fasting thing today -- fast of gedaliah. supposed to commemorate the second temple time jewish political assasination which ultimately led to the exile of the Jewish people -- sound familiar?

anyway to keep it trivial and short sighted like most of day-to-day reality in israel i turn my thoughts to dr gillian mckeith and what she'd think of my attempts to gain spritiual relief through abstinention. picked her book up just now in england and despite hippy tendencies and over interest in enzymes and colonic irrigation looks promising. cant be more crazy than all other rumours circling the world. shock horror it seems theres more to nutrition than avoiding carbs

not sure if i could do the whole thing but the quinnoa's on the boil as we speak

new year new ways

2004-09-19T06:06:00.000+03:00

With apologies to Ani Difranco and Dayvilles I finally launch myself on the blog scene. Couple of years too late to be avante guarde but my new years resolutions are
1) To not deny myself the fun of something just because everybody else is doing it and its not hard or original (habit goes way back - from banana clips and having a perm to drinking and living in Tel Aviv to mention a few... )
2) To be open to my creativity, potential and other self help blah blah wisdoms that I look forward to both preaching and mocking in this column
3) To experiment with not revealing everything straight away -- an exercise in not-labelling, starting with myself . Hence lack of my name on this site (that is if I've managed to set this up properly)

Happy New Year to you all

PS thanks to TalG who I met over a festive meal for kicking me into gear to do this and to Harry for being the only blogger inspirational enough (or just funny) for me to check regularly