everybody's dying just to get the disease

so i've had a long shabbos weekend at my mom's cousin's house, but i'll fill you in on the last few days. it's been an adventure.

we woke up for sharet wednesday and played games with the kids all day. zvi, naama, and a couple of jewish federation weird people came by interrupting our lesson to ask about ISC. i spent the rest of the morning stressing out over the decision to either accompany alice to the airport to pick up her package, or going to teach photography with karen whom i've barely spoken with on the subject. i decided that i'd wait until after lunch and hope that the situation would remedy itself. it's a miracle what sandwiches can do for one's life. alice found out that she was too late anyway. meanwhile, after finishing my sandwich and rejoicing at finding the solution to my problem, i buried myself in a tub of what is essentially chocolate frosting and ate it with pretzels. i think i have a problem. maybe in anticipation for teaching-time. who knows. i headed to the idanim school for my class, listening to elliott smith on the way. i think i needed to put my mind in a previous place. a place where i felt confident about where i was or my abilities as a human. when i was studying philosophy and was managing as an independent person with my own ideas and balance and direction. i needed to remember that feeling. to remember what i wanted to say. so as i was walking through ramla, i thought about what i saw here every day. what i noticed. who i knew. what i knew about them. what i would want to express about these people. then i thought about all the children and what they go through and how they live. its almost as if they are forced to grow up sooner than other children. so i thought about the words "lost innocents", and everything made sense. that's what i'll take photos of. it was as if i was giving myself an assignment. so automatically, i wasn't just taking photos just to do it. i had a reason. so that felt pretty amazing. i ended up having to wait about 30 minutes for karen to get all the kids together, while elliott smith made me feel like a person again. i finally got all the kids together (all 2 of them) and we went through the book, figuring out which photos they liked and/or didn't like and why. mostly they just cringe at the holocaust photo and laugh hysterically at the photo of a bunch of bare-assed english dudes running down the street. never fails. but i gave them the cameras anyway, and they went to town. a crowd started to gather, so the kids passed the cameras around the group.

this is when i got tired and went to sleep, will fill it out later...


came home, al and i went to daycare center
played with babies
babies are weird
came home for dinner.
hungry
watched tv
practiced guitar and watched beyonce videos
went to avi's to try out
was real rusty
al's almost completely learned how to play rocky raccoon
i need to annunciate more
music is great. jdate is not
its cold
wrote in journal personal stuff
highlights
no more internet
smoking
eating badly
anyway, bedtime now.

woke up and went to the elderly center, al went to airport
had a long talk with jodi
writing down her stories
got a ride back with shlomi to home to charge cameras and work on song
al got home with package
went to meet dana with kids
waited for a while becuase i was early
kids got there and i showed them the photos they took and i printed
some they loved and some they didnt because they are abstract and weird
we took the cameras out for a trip
i was proud at how fearless they were
found perfect place for lost innocents (broken playground)
got all packed up to go home, dana took me
got packed up for the weekend, went to jerusalem
everyone was a sourpuss on the bus
saw etgar kerach and shlomi shabaz speak
really inspiring little talk, not at all on the surface
they reminded me what it truly is to be an artist
touching all the deeper layers of an issue, but using simpler representations
for commentary
i asked about writer's block
two things:
one said that when he needed to write, he wrote and if he didn't write he must not have needed to write, so it didn't matter
the other said that there was 7 years between his first and second album, so it'll probably just come and go, but always return (hoped that if i was experiencing it, he hoped i would wake up and it would be gone)
left the thing hopeing for an adventure. it found us in the form of eyal whom we struck up conversaton with on the street.
went to dinner with him and his friends who were lovely people
lef them on ben yehuda at 2am in search of more adventure, and possibly a place to sleep
ended up on the steps of american apparel, near the first club we went to on our birthright
we played you and yours for about 2 hours, (and being accosted 3 different times, offered sex)
one of our victims, skipping guy, offered us a place to stay
we took a cab there, no red flags, and were introduced to two sweet, young but sweet guys.
we watched zohan and al went to sleep.
next morning, we took a bus to tachanat mercozit, where al and i ate at holy bagel before trying to figure out how to get to my mom's cousin's house in beitar ilit
finally figured it out after many stressed, confused phone calls.
kind of weird at first, but really sweet
offered clothes
robes
fashion show and photos
changed, showered, slept
biggest meal ever
talked about arabs, shabbat, weird progaganda on the walls, hashem and 5 million pounds of fish
played party game
slept and woke up in the morning to yummy salad meal
i've never been so full
we spoke about evolution, and thinking that its genetically impossible
spoke about arabs again
55 percent of women and 65 percent of men unfaithful
because the kadisha is being drained from the home
now everyone is working for themselves and not for each other
how no one knows what it feels like to fear god like a king
really scary
i thought of jeremy
how these people are so afraid of pissing god off that they restrict everything, but i'd rather welcome the apocolypse than live like this
so afraid to be the same as animals
we packed up and al had a devastating moment with the photos
said goodbye to girls
i want to write a short story about how the weekend went
really weird reactions from mom about evolution, pots, arabs
but sweet sweet family
got a bus back to tel aviv
sheruit back to ramla
looked through photos with jen
going to bed
excited for dad to come

_____________________



woke up this morning and went to ulpan. michal taught us songs in hebrew. really fun ones. home now, working on photos for rachael's birthday and jen's farewell. fuck i'm tired. i love harry potter. nothing much left. love everyone. edited photos for jen and of rachael. going to tel aviv now to speak to irthright groups about ISC. kind of nervous. sorry about the shabbiness of this post. lots happened. i'll fill in the rest later... happy hanukkah.

love

sally