daturadust

yummy food at work tonight. the meeting was really just and excuse to eat a lot and socialize. new menu is tasty.

spent some time disucssing the finer points of summer living and happiness tonight.

and the smartest little boy in the whole wide world has (drum roll please) his first loose tooth.
definitely a highlight of my day to hear his voice.

so, anyone else have any ideas on semi-permanent (ie. lasting longer than a few weeks) summer living situations?

anyone? anyone?

bueller?

bueller?

didn't think so.

breakthrough, breakdown. i realized yesterday that i was about to really hurt someone i love and myself in the process and due to her bravery to say something and my newfound ability to calmly listen and cry a little bit (ok, maybe i knew how, but not in this situation) disaster has been averted and i am greatful.

however, due to her deep understanding of the things in my heart that i often ignore, i have realized that i am in love with two people who, as it seems, cannot return that love in the same way that i want to give it. i have no doubt that they love me and care about me deeply and they are very dear friends and will always be that, but in the interest of honesty, i should tell them that my feelings have catapulted well beyond friendship. i also realized that i cannot leave for the peace corps without letting go of some unrealizable fantasies. when i love only the fantasy of someone and not their real self, i run the risk not seeing who they really are and letting not only my emotions but the relationship itself stagnate, because i cannot move forward. i run the risk of coming back to a fantasy that doesn't exist and being heartbroken after spending two years, or however long, clinging to my idea of how things should be instead of reality. i would much rather grow, and even if it hurts, i think it causes much less pain in the long run.

this is rudimentary and about the only bit of this that i can articulate at the moment. of course it was much clearer last night, but all the clarity gets jumbled in the crying and then i forget the eloquence i had in the moment when i found the words for the first time and what i was planning to say to them. i have some time i think, before i have to really confront that. i think i'm ok at knowing what to say when the moments come upon me.

on a sort of happier note, i showed up at rivendell last night, pushed over the edge by the fact that i hadn't eaten and the fact that i missed a not-birthday party that was, in part for me. ann fed me and hugged me while i cried in the kitchen, and i got to eat her fabulous not-birthday not-cake. it's this incredible, rich, entirely vegan concoction of layers of chocolate mousse and strawberries with dark chocolate shavings on top. i think merrie and james might need the recipe, and i'll be happy to procure it for them.

ok, back to waiting for my pants that got tea spilled on them to dry so that i can get out of here and have a bit of a day in the sun before i have to go to work.

i told my mom that i was leaving the house. after the requisite "no economic sense" comments and the sarcasm that was practically dripping with blood (i hadn't realized how much of a professional she really is with that) and the general sense of pain and anguish that she exuded, along with the mocking helplessness and incredulity as to how i could be so completely different from all of her friends' kids and so stubborn and stupid, she went to sleep angry. i won't. i managed to just float above it the entire time. calmly breathing and letting her rant. for the record my father jumped in and accused her of exactly what she accuses me of all the time, which i usually do at first - rejecting anything she suggests out of hand. i suppose turnabout is fair play. well. it's not, but that's the eternal jewish mother game. i'm rather proud that i've managed to extricate myself from it. it was so much easier than i had imagined. here's hoping that it continues to be that way. oh, and it will, since i'm leaving on sunday!

love you all.

got home. alone. parents gone, but i like it that way.

the moon was beautiful tonight. pale yellow, and her outline softened into surrounding clouds. she did that hiding perfectly thing behind the stringy grey wisps that blew past. driving home through powerful places - remembering chilly full moon rituals, bubbling cold water, stone circle - matt and i wishing and willing spring into being. insisting that we do beltane outside because by beltane we should be able to have ritual outside. even if it's 35 degrees. even if we can see our breath.

the goddess had her own messages for me tonight. and i felt attunement swirl around me as i walked through crisp april air, up the driveway, and looked at the constellations above my roof. inhaling woodsmoke, the best smell in the world.

of course, all of this got a little broken after the parents, whom i love very much, got home. sometimes if feel i should be parenting them. then i remember that it's not my job. the best i can do is be better. for myself.

i count the days (and nights) and know that my wishes will manifest. or better.

blessed be.

love you all.

guess the song... it was kinda fun. for anyone who hasn't seen this, you take song lyrics, translate them into german from english, then french from german, then back to english from french, then see how funny/intelligible they are. maybe i'll give you a prize if you guess right. especially if you know why i was thinking about them today. that might be hard, but it makes up for the fact that my song is kinda easy. still funny though. love you all.

Of can't I even remember, if we liked were, or above if I wished precisely too much, I however held it in my arms that I hold it in my arms, me it in my arms in him wasn't however held you

later.

You will travel far and wide for both pleasure and business.

Lucky # 31, 20, 54, 6, 53, 32, 3

Learn Chinese: Exit, Chu-kou (can't type the chinese characters)

how appropriate.

love you all.

Westley Inconceivable! You scored 92!

You live it, you love it, you lost track long ago of how many times you have seen it. You have been known to wish someone luck by hollering "have fun storming the castle!" You scoff at people who cannot recite the entire 'battle of wits.' You are a true fan. Thank you. Its people like you that give me hope for humanity.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender : You scored higher than 95% on pbpoints

Link: The Princess Bride trivia Test written by spiceymonkey on Ok Cupid

wait a minute. i scored 92. that means i got 8 wrong. i am a failure in the world... i don't even deserve to be murdered by pirates.

things i remember that i love about madison. (in no particular order)

sunset on campus drive
the capitol, backlit so the windows in the middle look like liquid gold
bascom hill and library mall full of signs and lounging lazy beautiful bodies (and minds, of course)
walking by her house (and knowing where it is) and watching my fabulous congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, who also happens to be a lesbian, walk up her steps and unlock her door.

the onion says in the personals section today "the man burns in 143 days )'(" amazing. still not sure if i'll be able to get there. will have to work on it.

also, i need some money very very quickly. if anyone out there needs a babysitter or knows someone who does, please let me know. or if you have any other ideas or opportunities. i'm open to just about anything. likewise if you or someone you know is looking to sublet a room/apartment, i really need one! i'm trying not to stay at the parents' longer than a week. if i do, please bring helicopters and bright lights and one of those swinging rope ladder things, 'cause that's what it might take to get me out of here...

i know. it's as simple as getting my shit together and going. and i will.

love you all.

i drove across a third of the country today. it only took 16 hours. i'm home.

when i looked up and saw the green madison sign, i didn't feel like i lived here anymore, but i guess i do for the next three months. how's that for being excited. happy to see people though. and i've been telling everyone else how beautiful madison in the summer is. there are many things to be happy about and grateful for.

i'm also exhausted and loopy.

call me. unless i already owe you a phone call, or i call you first. i have stories and kisses and hugs and want to see your beautiful faces.

no poignant thoughts for the night, but i am happy to sleep in my own bed. other side of the coin, cheers to getting it out of this house very soon.

love you all.

two things, that in my opinion, go together better than one might think. at least in my world.

happy birthday to me!! I am 24, or at least i will be at 10:28 this morning. my birthday coincides happily with ostara, passover, easter, etc. festivals bringing the light of spring and rebirth back to dark and frozen lands. i always feel like my year starts over here, memories of rituals in sara's parents' basement and the full moon in the backyard. flowers. my face turned up to the goddess in sara as i answer her questions, "What is your light?" i try not to think too hard. letting the answer flow through me.
"My openness," the answer for this year comes. a slight variation on the one i give every year. digging deep into myself for one of the qualities that i admire. remembering to remember.

so far new york is fun but still sometimes overwhelming. haven't been doing too much, but there are some fabulous highlights. jess, liz, joel and i got to see spamalot, the monty python musical. it was amazing. tim curry singing and dancing, david hyde pierce doing the entire dance number from fiddler on the roof. hank azaria is the knight who says "ni" and tim the enchanter. john cleese is the voice of god. i haven't laughed like that since i was 13. thank you liz.

genni and i managed to walk into trinity church one day while the choir was rehearsing with their orchestra. amazing, beautiful, enthralling. it was hard to drag myself away from such awesome holiness. churches are an odd theme lately, but i love old ones and there are lots around here. liz and i looked around st paul's at columbia. the stained glass is incredible and there is power to be felt standing under the dome. the organ is a work of art too. i'd love to catch a concert there, and maybe i'll swing by a meeting of the UU campus ministry group that meets in the nave on sunday nights. last night, before going out and drinking way too much beer, we went to st john the divine cathedral (which i learned is the largest in the world) to hear new york writers and poets read from dante's inferno. we only stayed about for an hour of the three-hour reading, but i could have stayed all night. the acoustics and the creepy echo were amazing. one of the best readers recited from a braille copy of his translation. the place was very dimly lit, the ceiling was so high above us i felt like i could have been looking at stars. and we caught the end of the easter vigil before the reading started. also powerful in a somewhat foreign way. the bible is, at the very least, an intriguing and well-written (if not always well-translated) story.

today, genni and i were sitting on the computer and she mentioned an add that she saw on craigslist for a new york dungeon that was looking for women to work there and willing to train pro-dommes. i had a momentary vision of abandonning my other plans and moving to new york for such a job. it would be an interesting turn of the wheel. i even emailed them. what the hell? they wrote me back, but with vibes of sketchiness. i know there are other many other ways open to me to explore this side of myself, and i'm still not sure which is right. this isn't really the type of decision to be made whimsically without the assent of my intuition. fun to dream about though...

off to have other dreams now. maybe. we leave for canada tomorrow (correction, today) at 6 in the morning. i'm looking forward to halifax and then it's off to montreal, where i will, of course, have many more beautiful adventures.

last night, while i was readjusting my internal clock to live in this country again, i had a dream that included a full blown musical number with touching lyrics, beautiful harmony, and full choreography. the movements were based on a theater class performance i saw in high school, and as such, there weren't really costumes, but the song was so gorgeous that it made my dream-self cry. i don't recall ever hearing it before in any of the musicals i've ever seen.

of course, since i am not a musical genius (though maybe there's one hididng out in my subconscious) and really don't know the first thing about music or composing, and because dreams fade fast while you're lying in bed, slowly waking up to the jazz radio station in genni's basement bedroom, i couldn't remember any of the song when i woke up. a few pieces of the plot didn't fall away completely, but most of it is gone.

this happens somewhat frequently, but usually it's the plot of some movie that gets melded into my dream, and they're not always good. now if i could somehow harness this....

genni, at the computer next to me, adds that she is in love with ricardo montabaln. stranger things, i suppose have happened.

we're off to pretend we're irish. happy (or not) kick the pagans and the snakes out of ireland day. i'm not so sure st patrick was an ok guy, but at least we all get to drink beer and see a parade. hoping to find some good music too.

love you all.

gearing up for a quiet night at my aunt and uncle's house since my plots and plans to go out in tel aviv tonight have fallen through. oh well, i'm perfectly happy to read or maybe watch a movie. time for simple reflection and email writing is good. i've been doing a lot of writing type writing too, but not ready to share it here yet...maybe y'all will get lucky (meaning that you won't be forced to read my bad poetry...)

this week in eilat was beautiful. my first full day there i spent entirely on the beach. went swimming a little and ended up with a sunburnt tummy and splotchily tanned arms. mind you, for those in wisconsin, i'm not complaining, just describing. for dinner i found the best shawirma place ever and the guy gave me the biggest plate of food i've ever seen for 12 shekels 'cause he thought i was cute. on the way home from the beach, i was reminded of burning man. on the other side of the very narrow bay, there was a restaurant/underwater observatory with flashing red lights in the shape of a pyramid. now, everyone at burningman has their ways of navigating themselves home regardless of the the substances they've consumed. you learn to pick a landmark early on because the city changes so much that you need something large and preferably well lit. mine was a lit-up pyramid on the street in front of ours and it always got me home. looking across the black water, my eilat pyramid was in about the same place as the one in black rock city. ahhh, home sweet home.

i also met an israeli guy at the hostel who took me out to dinner in taba. it's just across the egyptian border, so now i can say i've been to egygpt. the border crossing was long, and i showed my israeli passport to more people than have ever seen it before. the contents of my altoids box was inspected and inquired about in broken english/arabic/hebrew. i noticed distrust in the eyes of more than a few people we passed and realized what it's like to be seen as an israeli in sinai (or, really just the smallest tourist part of it, but also the one that most israelis travel to). i could see people calculating the possible danger of my facial features. i was very quiet, speaking only english and not much of that either. we walked along the beach, blessedly quiet and eerily deserted of tourists. it's the off season, and the hotel has recently re-opened after the bombing last sukkot.

the beach there is beautiful, and the lights of aquaba twinkle in the distance. the port there is much bigger than the one in eilat becuase it's jordan's only one, whereas israel has the meditteranean. during the day, i could see the jordanian flag in the air like a constant question on my mind. yes, i answer, i will see your country and know how beautiful it is. i will talk to your people and taste your food and probably find it quite familiar. i will bear witness to what my people have done and try to learn your language. i will place small bandages on a gaping wound.

we sat and had coffee and smoked a orange-flavored tobacco out of a hookah. at dinner, we were the only people in the entire restaurant. a woman in a turquoise bedouin dress and a long black headscarf sat outside making bread on a small stove that emanated pungent smells. the food was plentiful and excellent. i wasnt sure what to make of my companion's comments about how amazing the service in arabic restaurants was and of the basically better service of the arabic people in general. i felt like although what he was saying might have been true, it was full of alarming similarly to generalizations about servile racial qualities bestowed on any race that has been enslaved. i've seen more than a few disconcerting caricatures of "happy negroes" displayed in the form of statues and posters in restaurants in various places i've been here, and the unspoken excuse seems to be a decor hearkening back to a different time, but it doesn't change the inappropriateness of the display. there seems to also be no concrete way of counteracting this other than nervous and/or incredulous comments to whoever i happen to be out with at the moment. hmmm. squirm.

the few days i spent in eilat helped me get back into the rhythm of living in each of my moments fully and not worrying so much about future or past. i still often find myself stuck in thinking about what new york will be like and what will happen when i go home and absent or silent friends who i miss. i guess it's a little homesickness. i had some on my last trip too, but it passed back into bliss within a day or two.

i'm going to haifa for they day tomorrow and i'm excited about seeing my friend Rachel and visiting the Bahai'i temple that was renovated about five years ago. most of my family and friends haven't seen it since then.

Oh, and today i went to a synagogue in israel for the first time for my cousin's (by marriage) brother's bar mitzvah and was reminded why i've never done that before. even most of the progressive synagogues here have a balcony where the women sit, behind a white lace curtain, removed from the men so as not to distract them from prayer. i was happy with the warm welcome i received and the constant involved chatter of the semi or non-religious women around me, many of whom only ever attend synagogue for events such as these. i felt forcibly separated from a religion that i've always been able to participate in to a greater extent than most jewish women here. i read the torah, even chanted at my bat mitzvah, something that's unheard of here and sounds strange to everyone i talk to here. the highlight of the whole thing was opening the curtain every once in a while to glimpse the bar mitzvah with his mother and sisters, and the torah scroll, and seeing how long it took the religious woman sitting behind us to tell us to close it. two little girls wandered in and out of the rows of men bowing and rising in prayer. i watched a father embrace his daughter and wondered if they were religious and what these girls would feel like on the day that the freedoms of childhood were no longer accesible to them.

in a moment of guilty and excited pleasure, i turned on the tv while i was eating dinner tonight and found an episode of angel instead of the news and reality shows or the hallmark channel that i expected to be the only english programs on. i savoured it. i'm sure i'll get to overdose in new york with jess and liz and will be grateful for the lack of tv that i'll have all summer.

that's it for now, but look for one more installment of my hopefully somewhat interesting adventures before i head back to the states on tuesday.

love you all.

Your love is... by ChibiMarronchan
Your name is...
Your kiss is...	erotic
Your hugs are...	warm
Your eyes...	twinkle in the moonlight
Your touch is...	irresistable
Your smell is...	exotic
Your smile is...	amazing
Your love is...	one of a kind
Quiz created with MemeGen!

How did they know?!?!

The light of love is always in us, no matter how cold the flame. It is always present, waiting for the spark to ignite, waiting for the heart to awaken and call us back to the first memory of being the life force inside a dark placewaiting to be born - waiting to see the light. bell hooks. love you all.

this time integrity finally won out over desire.

now i know what it means.

i live for those moments (well, actually they just happen and i am awed by revelation) when you see so many years of life and a whole pattern of behavior laid out before you and you know the why's and how to move on. and you do it. ask me about it sometime and maybe i'll tell you.

i am truly blessed.

love you all.

friday morning:
i turned on mtv for a little background getting-dressed-music.  it's usually interesting, and they still play music most of the time here.  it's been a long time since i've acutally seen a real music video.  so, i read this caption: madison west high school: madison, wi.  On the screen is the picture of the front of the buliding that i walked into every weekday for four years as a slightly angstful but mostly carefree teenager.  the entire jimmy eat world video for the song work featured kids at my high school talking about their lives, not being taken seriously, about getting out of madison, interspersed with scenes from parties, hallways, classrooms, and the cafeteria.  places i know intimately from having the same experiences there.  it was surreal and surprising and entirely unexpected.

friday afternoon: 
my cousin picked me up from the train station and drove me to the shuk (market) in tel aviv.  rows of shops full of clothes, fresh fruit and vegetables of every kind imaginable, spices, falafel, smoked fish.  the noise and the smells and the colors just swirl around your head as you walk through.  we bought a glass of fresh squeezed pommegranite juice, a shiny scarf for me, and a present for his girlfriend.  i picked up a tangerine that had fallen off of a stand when no one was looking and ate it when we had walked some distance away, satisfied with my silly sneakiness.  then we turned the corner towards an open air artists market the takes up an adjacent street on Tuesdays and Fridays.  clowns on stilts, human manequins covered in caked clay, and other street performers surrounded us as we made our way through stalls of woodcarvings, ceramics, and all sorts of gorgeous handmade glass beads and things.  on the corner, he pointed out a woman who was singing on the street with a small crowd around her.  he said she used to be famous.  she sang with yitzhak rabin at the rally right before he was killed.  now she belts her heart out with her guitar case in front of her.  it wasn't very full of shekels.

friday night:
tal, enat, his friend amir, and I went to a suburb of tel aviv, kvar saba, to see a band called hadag nahash (snakefish).  it was my first exposure, aside from the radio that piqued my curiosity, to israeli hip hop.  the club was packed, and it was huge too, at least 400 people.  i didn't understand a lot, but generally the messages of their songs are left wing and peace-oriented and deal very frankly with their experiences of living through bombings.  i wasn't sure how i felt about the fact the they bill themselves as "zionist hiphop", but i think for them it means that pride in their country doesn't excuse the atrocities it's committed.  there's really a different breed of politics here that i'm not articulate enough to write about yet.  back to the band, they rocked.  they reminded me a lot of smokin' with superman.  same kind of funk/hiphop/jazz fusion going on, but in hebrew.  they have one song that's almost entirely made up of bumper stickers.  it's awesome.  you can listen to it from here <http://www.israelcentersf.org/music/hadag-nahash-sticker.mp3> and i found a translation along with a teaching packet about israel through the song.  it was put together by a guy from the band.  it's a big pdf file, but really interesting.  <http://www.israelcentersf.org/culture/2004-2005/stickercurric.pdf>.  i had an amazing time.  they're coming to the states this spring for their second us tour.  i told them to drop by madison if they got a chance.  they'll be in chicago for sure.

saturday:
went to visit my other cousin barak who's in the army.  he's stationed at a tiny post on the dead sea, directly across from the jordanian border.  on the way there i was struck by the thousands of hues of blue and green and aqua (the same colour of my new shirt) that the dead sea contains.  the deep rich dark blue just melts into sparkly shimmers when the sun hits it the right way.  the views of the mountains of jordan, so close, were spectacular, and i wondered when i would get to see the view from the other side.  all along the road were red and yellow signs warning of open pits, do not enter, and it is forbidden to leave the road and stay on the shore after dark.  Barak's unit is responsible for patrolling about 50 km of the border since there's no offical crossing there.  the jordanian government does not recognize it as a border.  his post is situated on top of a hill overlooking the area where, in 1948, a chemical extraction company build a canal to drain part of the dead sea into pools on the south side of the area.  there's now a small land bridge, although barak says it's muddy and your feet sink into the salty mineral sludge, it is possible to walk across.  thier job is to make sure that no one does.  out of the 40 people there, two thirds are women who have volunteered for combat duty.  this is an experimental program since most israeli women have shorter army service and work in the education/infrastructure branches of the army and sometimes in intelligence as well.  barak says it's pretty quiet out there.  i responded, "That's better than some places you could be..."

saturday night:
i had my first salsa lesson.  in hebrew.  the organization that was teaching the lessons at a small club near tel aviv university calls itself Peace Through Salsa.  they're having a big conference in eilat a few days after i leave israel.  i know enough hebrew to pick up right and left and counting, and the rest was visual enough that i could catch on.  i got the basic steps down pretty well and had a good time.  well, mostly.  my partner was a 25-year-old mechanical engineering student in tel aviv.  i was trying not to look at my feet too much and we talked a little, though mostly there was mutual counting.  then i glanced down and saw not just my feet, but my partner's not-raging but very noticeable hard-on.  any small amount of flattery i felt was negated by the fact that it was just too apparent and rather unwelcome, but still rather hilarious.  come on guys.  by the time you're 25, isn't there any more control than that??  maybe not, and i know it has a mind of it's own.  i can't help when i get aroused either.  sometimes it still happens at unopportune times, like in the car, recently.  but i have the luxury of secretly smiling to myself and continuing to feel pleasure without anyone being the wiser unless i choose to share.  i know my male friends do not have that luxury, and that's one of the reasons i'm glad i don't have a penis attached to me (all the time).  it still felt like middle school dance class.  the guy tried to flirt with me for a little while, bought me a drink, but the conversation just didn't go far.  i didn't do a whole lot of dancing for the rest of the night, but there were a lot of really talented people there.  i was happy to have seen a couple sides of the israeli music scene that i didn't even know existed.

oh, and i found the greatest blog that i've seen in a while, and certainly since i've been here.  check it out
<http://www.orthodoxanarchist.com>  good stuff indeed.

that's all for now.  i hope everyone has a wonderful relaxing sunday.

love you all.

 

so here's a bit more as incentive for reading my journal...

things i love about jerusalem:
the hills and the little suburbs in valleys
driving through them and getting the inexplicable feeling of going home
the views
walking and coming upon this gigantic park full of pine trees and flowers
almond tree blosoms
driving through a 700-year-old neighborhood
the fact that that's the median age of places in jerusalem
the sun on the buildings
watching all the lights on the hills go on just before it gets dark
the best falafel in the world
hearing the midday call to prayer from the minaret as i'm entering the church of the holy sepulchur
minutes later, hearing the church bells
finding some rescue remedy in the super-pharm
getting to see my grandmother's grave and say a prayer, even if i cried
the feral cats
the character and identity of each distinct neighborhood
finding bits of paganism... like pentacles in the windows at the YMCA
the fact that i will be able to come back

things i don't love so much:
getting told over and over again how "not safe" it is for me to go to (fill in site in east jerusalem or muslim holy site of your choice here)... feeling paralyzed and running out of time to arrange a "safe tour" because my friends don't feel safe going there either.
attempting to have a discussion about said fact
the fact that the people who tell me these things are probably right
fear and tension
getting harassed by cab drivers
the racial profiling inherent in security checks... they get you to say something to check your accent if they can't tell just by looking at you
the new wall (except for the fact that it does stop bullets sometimes.)
not ever having enough time there

so, i'm back in rehovot now. tired and happy. jerusalem itslef is so beautiful there it's almost
indescribable, but i'll try.

the city just shines. everything, or almost everything is made out of
jerusalem stone, which is this sort of glowy, light tan beige stone,
sometimes it's a little pink. in the right light about an hour before
sunset, it glows gold. the story behind it isn't as pretty. it was
part of standardized consruction during the british mandate between
1917 and 1948. they built a lot of gorgeous houses though.

jerusalem itself has been through more incarnations than i can begin to
remember or name. each left a mark and a group of bulidings, sometimes
whole communities without which the city would not be itself. i loved
meandering through the streets of the Muslim quarter of the old city,
smelling cardamom and other fresh spices, eating bread dipped in zaater
(green spice), admiring the bright embroidery and long dresses in the
shops. and peering surreptitiously through the occaisional open door
into someone's house. the arches of doorways are a little below street
level so as to humble anyone who walks through. this ancient city and
its streets still live and breathe with families and children, old arab
men smoking hookas, ethiopian priests in long black robes, and tourists
like me.

i did some decent haggling at one of the shops we stopped at and
procured myself a nargila (a hookah). it's beautiful, and i got the
guy down to just 30 shekels more than half the price he started at. i
almost walked away, but after doing such a good job, how could i? i
was quite pleased with myself, and i can't wait to share it with all of
you. it will be prominently displayed wherever i live this summer.
speaking of that...for those of you in madison, please please keep your
eyes peeled for good sublets. your membership in the "help orelia NOT
live with her parents" club is much appreciated.

i also went to a scottish church that was built in the 30s. simple and
majestic at the same time with stucco stained glass (what they used
before the lead-lined ones that originated in europe) and bright blue
hangings behind the altar. inside is a store run by Sunbula,
<http://www.sunbula.org> a non-profit the helps organize Palestinian
women's craft cooperatives and sells embroidery and woodcarvings. i
bought a beautiful red embroidered wallet. it felt good to
participate, even for a moment, in supporting an economy and people who
need it.

After last friday, there are "high alerts" going on in Jerusalem and
Tel Aviv. It was tense yesterday too, but i still had trouble
sympathizing overtly when my friend tried to lament to me how hard and
scary life for israelis is. all i could think was that yeah, it's
hard, and i'm frustrated that i can't go see things i want to see, and
i could see how built up over time, it contributes to elevated and
poisonous stress levels. but my friends have upper middle-class homes
full of luxuries like plumbing and reliable electricity. my friends
can lock their doors whenever they feel like it and not worry about
their homes being raided (even if they might get shot at...). my
friends can drive to work in their cars and know that they won't be
turned back even if they have to wait through traffic due to extra
security that's designed to protect them in the first place. none of
it is simple, but these are the places my head goes, and more often
than not, i keep my mouth shut because it's an argument i just can't
bear to start. it's not like anyone i know is all that conservative,
but the things that come out of their mouths sometimes about the "arab
mentality" still smack of racism and make me feel spiky and
uncomfortable.

The last thing i did today was flit into the synagogue in Hadassa
hospital and peek at the Chagall windows. sadly, i didn't have very
much time, but i managed to snap a bunch of pictures and already had my
camera put away when a tour guide came in and told me (first in hebrew,
then english) that i wasn't supposed to take pictures. i grinned
inwardly and ducked out before she began the tour, bouyed by that
little rush of adrenaline that comes from doing something just slightly
naughty. i hope the pictures turn out.

that's all from here. i miss you all and wish you blessings and luck
and kisses.

of course, love you all.

negativity and hopelessness are poisonous. i could have just as easily left the last line of my last entry up and it would have been all that was important to say. oh well. i'll leave it up anyway. since when do i think for more than half a second before something comes out of my mouth?

going for really long walks helps. my body sort of hums and feels better after furiously walking for just over an hour. went shopping with my aunt today, had coffee, a nice dinner and talked. it's good to be with them and just relaxing around the house.

tomorrow i'm going to jerusalem for a few days. i'm excited. more from there or when i get back if there's not reliable email access.

love you all.

too much to process. i didn't find out about the bombing until this afternoon. i was blissfully hiking up north with my cousins and their 16-month-old. i know enough hebrew to have understood "bombing" and "tel-aviv" on the car radio, and my cousin reluctantly translated the rest for me.

it hit me so much harder than the one in jerusalem when we were in rehovot two years ago. then it felt no different from watching it in the states. i was an hour and a half away. indestructible. this time, i could have been there, matan could have. so many people were. i know. it's the last thing that all of you want to think about, but i can't help it.

i was riveted to the news tonight even though I could barely understand it. the video, photographs of the victims, blood sprayed everywhere. i almost lost it, left the room and buried myself in my book. later, i read about shopkeepers who went about tearing up pieces of clothing to use as tourniquets on pieces of limbs. ok. no more graphic detail.

more images of the bomber. his video. he was 21. his family carrying a coffin down stairs. no flags and shouts of celebration. masked members of hizboullah, hamas, islamic jihad... we didn't do it. none of them clamouring for attention. marching in the streets of gaza. pleas and demands to the UN.

last night, before any of this, i watched film of the teary reunions of Palestinian prisoners with their families. celebrating, shooting guns in the air. later, the BBC news broadcast told me that Israeli officials had just announced a plan the expand settlements in the west bank. i'm one of the least cynical people i know, and i find it hard to believe that anything can really change. i was a little relieved but skeptical when i got here. something had to happen, the cease-fire wouldn't hold. so now does it go back to retaliations for retliations against killing, murdering, destroying homes, lives, families, on both sides? The words of those in power are slowly changing, but what good will it really do in the lives of anyone here? i realize more and more that no one here chose to be born into this, but the racism and hate run so deep, how can anyone hope for, let alone expect change.

my uncle thinks that it's a good sign that Abbas is condemning the attack. Arafat never did. I wonder. Last night i wrote in my paper journal: "I guess those who said Sharon is using the pull-out from Gaza to downplay what he's doing with his other hand were right. I still hold out a little bit of hope, but I shouldn't get too attached to it..."

more from that entry later. i was going to put it in today, but it all seems jumbled and irrelevant. all i can add right now is my hope for the healing of deep wounds and recognition of the scars already raised on the skin of this beautiful country.