wow, ok so after that clusterfuck of a post, i have some normal things to say. well, relatively normal, considering those involved. however, here goes...
yesterday after we last spoke, i finished editing photos of jen and rachael (for her brithday). last night was also the first time we were scheduled to speak to birthright groups at their closing sessions about ISC. so we got all excited and antsy for that. i forced alice to walk with me to the photo place that never really EVER seems to be open, but i figured i'd give it a shot to see if i could get rachael's photos printed before the next day. we arrived at a closed store (surprise, surprise), but knocked anyway, and the door was answered (surprisingly) by a guy that spoke only enough english to say, "i no speak english" (not surprisingly). so we abandoned that effort in enough time to get home and showered and ready to catch a sheruit to tel aviv to scope out the mall for a photo printing place. but not before lighting the first night's worth of hannukah candles and saying the blessings at home with al and buffy. it was really nice. i miss lighting them at home.
after a short sheruit ride, we finally got to the escher drawing that is the tel aviv mall/central bus station and looked around just long enough to 1) not get sucked into oblivion and 2) not find a photo printing establishment. so i decided to just give rachael the CD with the photos on it the next day and print them this week. in a freakishly obsessive effort to be on time to the closing session, and not get yelled at by momo, we immediately started walking in the direction of the hotel in which the closing session was taking place. we checked the place out, realizing that we had plenty of time, so we walked across the street to this pizza place to munch on some mozarella pesto thingies. once fully satiated, we went to pay out, but the cashier informed us that they are interested in hiring a couple of people. so we left our numbers and moseyed along. it was nearly time for us to speak, although we were still super early, so we just snuck in the door of the session and leaned against a table in the back, attempting to be as inconspicuous as possible. by now, you should realize that i have problems laughing at inappropriate times. and by laughing, i mean that i get the giggles so badly that it interrupts pretty much anything that's going on, usually something serious, and i'm mortified. both for myself and the serious person speaking. luckily, this didn't happen last night, otherwise momo would've called me out in front of a room full of people. so bullet dodged there. alice and i were both nervous, so when momo called us up to sit on the floor in the middle of a circle, it didn't really help calm the nerves. but we went anyway. i don't really remember what i said, but alice covered most of what we were collectively supposed to talk about, so i sheepishly, redundantly spoke my piece and momo mercifully took over. it wasn't all that bad, really. just terribly unprepared, i'd say. but at least now we know what to say, who will say it, etc. actually, that's a lie. we don't know that shit now. but we will. and near the end, some strange woman speaks up in the back. someone we didn't even notice enter the room. she said that her name was valerie green and that she'd left her amazing job in england, bought a car, and drove herself and her dog all the way to israel and just wanted to share her decision to make alliyah with the ripe birthright potentialities. it was cute. real surprise. after they broke for dinner, a girl came up to me that remembered me from her phone interview, mainly becuase she worked for nylon magazine at the time and i had shared my plight about the missing art layout for the photos i took for them. i suspect she was part of the reason i actually received the layout. i found out last night that she's dating the guy that i was emailing about the fucking thing. but anyway, we ended up talking with her over dinner and she seems interested to come back. she's a kickass girl, ariella. i hope she contacts us.
we left the hotel and cabbed it to the sub kuch for open mic. as soon as i walked in, i saw craig from houston (yeah, i know!) that i'd met the previous week. in the interim i'd discovered that his bandmate is dating an old friend of mine from dallas. as soon as i saw him, i mentioned her name and he freaked out. then i freaked out. then we freaked out together, and now we're friends. it's adorable. anyhoo, meital called al and i upstairs for a special candle lighting before open stage began. daniel lit the candles with his special paper candle hat made by nufar, and we all sang songs together. i met a slovanian landscape architecture student, digeridoo player named janez (which apparently means jonathan). we all hung around to see a couple of performers, when tal called me up. i played rocky raccoon for daniel and alice and history of fiction for myself. i didn't do as well as i could, but i just really need to fucking practice. that's all. however, craig did tell me that i got the audience to be quiet and listen, so that's something. then craig got up there and fuckin wailed on the guit/harmonica. then he got the resident fiddle player (cool chick) to accompany him on a tune. we cheered. it was good. next, some orthodox guys came by to make sure that every person had the opportunity to light candles. they even did it upstairs and downstairs. i got some cool photos of that. i finished up with open mic and went downstairs so that janez could teach me how to breathe right for playing the digeridoo. he ordered a glass of water with a straw and taught me how to puff up my cheeks and breathe through my nose, pushing the air out of my cheeks at the same time so the bubbles never stop forming in the water. really tricky, but i think i got the hang of it. and in the process, i met a very special person. i won't elaborate too much, but i allowed myself to feel something without judging it or becoming cynical right away. we talked about important things and about how nothing is really important. how the world would be such a better place if we didn't succumb to our egos and if women were in charge of everything. it felt nice not to try so hard, but also just be ok with whatever it was. i'll spare you. anyway, we had consciously missed the last sheruit at 3Am so that we could stay until 5AM. i ended up passing out on the couch after a nice chat with ran, the bartender about the song ("i started writing poetry so i didn't have to work, and now i work so that i don't have to write poetry"). alice woke me up at 5:30AM and we caught a cab home. we were both basically dead, when all of a sudden "happy together" by the turtles came on the radio and we both started singing and dancing in the back of the cab. supergreat moment. the driver must've been either really confused or really amused. wonderful. we passed out as soon as we got home.
this morning, we were assholes. assholes that slept through/turned off our alarms. fuck fuck fuck. so i missed rachael's birthday. and i am an asshole. i will hopefully see her this week. i'm an asshole. just in case that wasn't clear before. last night, we missed jen's farewell get together, so after scrounging around unsuccessfully for pants, i ran outside with alice to say goodbye to her as she got her aunt to drop her by the house. i'm sure going to miss that girl. wow. she's the best persian i've ever met. funniest. hands down. ever. after this, alice and i lazied about the room, watching scrubs on the internet. the only other thing we had to do was get ready for a hanukkah party at zvi's house, so we got showered and caught bits of a documentary on transvestite relatonships and one on child geniuses. both really interesting.
we left about 6PM to zvi's, where we lit candles, ate latkes, and received very sweet presents from zvi in the form of journals (including the ISC mission statement clued inside). it was lovely. something about the fact that our journey didn't start here and it won't end here, but we can document it or something. you get it. we also ate some very important hanukah pastries. donuts. fuck. i don't want to talk about it.
next, some guy stopped by the house with texts and an adam sandler song (i'll let you guess which one), to have an intimate little discussion about the nature of the hanukkah story. it was pretty cool for a bit, but then i started to fall asleep. i saw him see me dozing, so i snapped out of it just long enough to notice something funny about the text, point it out to al, start laughing, and then be completely fucked for the entire rest of the discussion. i could not stop laughing. it did not help that the moderator asked me what was so funny, which prompted me to try to give a ridiculous-sounding explanation, which made me laugh more, which made ofir pinch me and hiss "sherutim!" at me (meaning, "go the fuck to the bathroom!"), which caused alice to get up and go to the bathroom, which allowed me to calm down a bit before realizing that i might have to fart, which got me started again because i thought how i would just destroy everything if that happened and what al would do. she came back to the couch, and i immediately took her place in the bathroom, taking my sweet, sweet time so that i could just get the thing over with. i've never wanted something to be over so much in my life. i came back out to the group to sit down. about 1 minute later, we all look over and one of the texts has just lit on fire from one of the hannukah candles which just sent me to the moon. i couldn't stop laughing after that to save my life, except now everyone was laughing. so at least i was safe. the discussion was actually interesting, but it went on way too long. something about how the miracle of hannukah was really about the hasmoneans defeating the greeks, not the fucking oil. but for some reason, the jews diminished celebrating the war victory and instead promoted the magical, ritualistic miracle for the purpose of the holiday. but whatever. i apologized to the guy and asked for the piece of paper that got burned to put on our wall. ofir spent a few minutes teaching us how to make calls for oranim so we can make some extra money. i am broker than i've ever been, so it'll help.
we came back home and i chatted with some good friends that i miss very much, both from here and from home. then alli and i watched superbad. i got an email from the janez and from aunt andy and pregnant missy. i even got a comment from ernie bernie in hebrew and one from caitlin. a message from the blog about a year-end summary. i gave em one. i've had a really great year. i should summarize my year. wow. fuck. that'll take a hot minute. i'm going to bed now. i miss my gammy. my daddy comes in 2 days. tomorrow we have a meeting at the absorption center in ramla to find out about making alliyah for all interested. we get to sleep in. that's all i care about actually. jeez. the things we'll do for love, food, and sleep. it's amazing really. well, on that note...
goodnight and happy hannukah!!!! (notice how i spell it about 78 different ways? yep.)
love,
sally
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