when you're holding me, we make a pair of parentheses

last night was a total dream. a sheruit picked us all up from the house. er, most of our group anyway because some people got their own rides. we drove through tel aviv and landed in a neighborhood called florentine. the restaurant we went to was called sub kuch milega, a 3 story indian place with a restaursnt on the first floor, stage and pool tables on the second, and rooftop patio and bar on the third. decorated like you'd imagine a dreamy indian place would be with colorful draperies and couches galore complete with wandering, long-haired gypsy types that one might see sitting in a park in the late 1960's, circled around a bonfire or a guitar. anyone that knows me, knows. this. is. it.

as we walked in and up, each floor more magnetic than the last, we settled temporarily on the rooftop patio, where they were showing a sort of independent short film festival. we couldn't really talk, so we relocated to the floor with the food. i don't really know how much food i ate, but considering the fact that indian food is my all time fave and i haven't had it in what seems like years, i gorged myself on veggie casseroles and indian crackers. i think i got three plates. it was amazing and exactly what i needed. when fully satiated, our whole group went up to the floor with the stage and played pool for a minute. ofir had asked me to bring my guitar, so not really knowing how it would work, i went ahead on stage with no mic or amo and played a short-ish set of my own stuff and a few covers.

hilda's song
sprout and the bean
rocky racoon
ghosts don't wear sheets no more
mercedes benz
bobby mcgee
history of fiction
blackbird
i will follow you into the dark
borderline (er, half a verse of it. i forgot the words)

buffy even told me that rocky racoon was her lullaby as a child, which was adorable. i had a few requests for songs i know i have to learn so i can play them. a few ideas:

wild world-cat stevens
landslide-fleetwood mac
so long maryann-leonard cohen
alameda-elliott smith
aeroplane over the sea-neutral milk hotel
skinny love-bon iver

i got a pretty good response considering i haven't warmed up or performed in a couple months. it was really nice. but hot. and i was nervous. we got to talk with new israelis, which was the point of the whole night. i met naama's brother and his friends, hung out with a guy that we work with at oranim, a medic from jen's birthright trip that has a dreamy british accent, and others.

near the end of the night, we sat at the downstairs bar and the playlist was the best thing i've heard in israel. almost every song made me swoon or smile:

don't look back in anger-oasis
some thom yorke song from 'the eraser'
paper tiger-beck
so long maryann-leonard cohen
more that i can't remember, but whew. nice.

i told the bartender that his playlist was great and asked him if he was going to see AIR, to which he replied "yes". maybe i'll have a new friend with good taste in music. i love that. PLUS, i found out that coincidentally, this place was where tal from mike's place runs his open stage, so i can come here and play on sunday nights. the best thing ever. we called it a night after this and caught our sheruit back to ramla to fall asleep. we still had ulpan this morning even though we didn't get to bed until around 3AM or later. it was tough to get to class today, but we did it albeit late-ish. then we worked. momo asked me over to his desk to see the photos i took for the internship program. then he proceeded to tell me his dreams for future ISC groups. he wants to create three levels (both price and volunteer) so that everyone can choose where they want to be and where they can help the most. our program has been approved to be for free (for the next session, not ours). however, momo let me know that if we are interested in helping recruit volunteers, each person we get to sign up will go towards more of our tuition being refunded, of which most has been absorbed by grants, scholarships, etc. through MASA and oranim. pretty cool. i already sing the praises of this program. i really do think it's a great one. if there's a catch, i certainly don't see it. aval ze ma she ze. (but it is what it is)

i realized another thing today. i have bad feelings about situations or people. feelings that i do not want to acknowledge because they are less than admirable. jealousy, superiority, indifference, shame, insecurity, fear, etc. i get these feelings everyday, just like anyone i'm sure. and most of them are fleeting. however, i feel that they are significant because they are normal and i almost want to write about them. but something always stops me. i think this is because if i write them down incidentally, they then become real. i then own them. they have become a part of me. and some very big part of me doesn't want to recognize that i feel things like this. even though i know that i do and that i always will most likely, i feel that if i just notice them and let them go, it's more productive than documenting them. even if they help me learn something. but i'm learning how to respond to such feelings by not writing them down, so that's better maybe. whatever.

i'm also still in a weird place with the photography. i feel like i'm taking a weird vacation from the vigorous nature with which i approached taking photos before. it's not such a dire need. that scares me. same with music. but i think i'm just going to let my feelings take me where i'm going to go. not beat myself up, but notice what i want and still push myself to keep taking photos and playing music. i just need to give myself the time. or challenge myself to take the time to do these things so that i can foster creative energies which in turn will nurture creative ideas and impulses. i'll do that.

tomorrow is a rosh hashanah activity with naama at the house, then dan (medic on al and i's birthright trip) is going to pick us up to take us to his family's house in some very religious village to spend the new year holiday. we won't be able to leave the village for a couple of days, so it will be very nice. i'm so excited to see dan and spend time with his family in a different, authentically israeli setting. very cool. plus, i can work on my hebrew! it's getting better. i can tell. laila tov culam (goodnight everyone).

l'hitraot (later)

b'ahava (with love)

sally