Cologne Revisited

Maybe I didn't give Cologne enough credit.

COLOGNE, GERMANY.

After I've reached my destination via train track--- I meet this Canadian fellow... we check in at the same hotel.  My phone's gone all haywire.  We promise to reunite for an evening of expedition.  That's what it is.  When I first get there, it's fresh and new.  There's a gothic cathedral, big as fuck, land-marked in the center of town.  I never enter it...go figures...but, I watch it from far away, never up close--- which seems odd at this very moment.  Peculiar!  Why didn't I enter (or, at the very least, walk  to the base and touch the gravel stone?).......

But.... alas! I never approached the gothic thing... just peered from afar, gasping at its darkness.

So, I book a room in this somewhat ritzy town,,, lots of chain-stores and accordions and this eery cathedral... GIANT.  The size is shocking.

So, I book a room.  I purchase a cute little bottle of wine.  First, I walk 2 miles, searching for a grocery store.  I find one inside of a German mall, with chocolate shops and shoe stores.  I buy a small red wine... a screw top.  I return to my room: a bed, a mini fridge, a marble bathroom.  I roll a joint.  I light up a joint (weed supplied from good old Amsterdam) and drink my petite bottle.

Canadian knocks on my hotel door.  I answer....buzzed from a mini-bottle and a small joint.  We walk.  There's a concert.  We eat kabab.  We meet four German blonde girls.  We all go dancing at a club.  Lots of techno.  Lots of beer.  We dance like robots (my specialty).  I'm a hit.

I walk back alone.  I stop at McDonalds.  I eat a fish fillet.  I look for the giant cathedral.  I get hassled by two tacky German guys with frosted hair.  I find my hotel (right next to the giant cathedral).  I pee my pants.  I pass out.  I wake up.  I've lost my wallet.  I freak out.  The Canadian knocks on my hotel door... gives me 20 euros.  I search for my wallet.  I retrace my steps... back to the concert... back to McDonalds.  No such luck...free CocaCola.  A car is turned over.  I give up.  I buy a night at a shitty hostel.  I smoke another joint in a parking lot...it's raining.  I cry.  A guy drops a gun.  I cry some more.  I hate Cologne.

Live Shrimp

"I saw it! It's little pink legs and it's little black eyes."  She's talking about shrimp...the live ones...in the tank... and she's cringing.  Like hell, she's cringing.  This sushi joint serves live shrimp...a daily special etched in blue on their dry-erase board.

Poor little things.  Snatched from its watery box, a scaled-to-fit ship anchored in the pebbles, a mermaid, a sunken treasure trunk, a couple of lobsters clawing at the glass, and the shrimp...just bobbing in the tide-less tank.

Little black eyes... soulless little insects.  Except, they must have some sort of purpose.  Like that one-eyed photographer.  I don't know his name, but he wore a black patch over his left eye...a snarling pirate...and he snapped photos.  He wore prescription eye-wear, lop-sided because of his patch *(and you'd think, any Lenscrafters salesman with an ounce of integrity, would give him half-off)... and his purpose... to snap photos...like the Beethoven of photography.

And maybe, I'll carry Louis Vuittons and wear stilettos.  Maybe, I'll drive a Mercedes convertible and it'll smell new, like polished cow skin.  Maybe I'll get my hair done, all pomped up and pretty.  I'll eat carpaccio and super greens and caviar.  I'll marry an older man, and he'll die 20 years later than expected.  I'll be his nurse and when I'm a widow with our three adult children, I'll live alone in a big house.  I'll wear St. John's pantsuits and be a member of a country club.  I'll get older and I'll move into a highrise on Wilshire.  I'll get older.  I'll hire a "girl" to cook me breakfast and take me to the movies.  We'll go to the theater and talk about the weather. 

And those damn shrimp, crawling on your white plate.  Writhing every which way and that.  Their little pink bodies and their blinking black eyes.  Can shrimp blink?

Fame

He says, “I’ll take a photo of you and make you famous.”  And he takes out his smart phone, and smiles.

Today’s the end of the world.  No party, it just is.  That’s that.  Some guy gets stabbed outside of the Apple Pan.  A mom witnesses this, texts her son, and he reads it out loud, inside his century-old shack.  “Stabbed?” everyone gasps in horror.  “Yes,” the girl squeaks, “today’s a weird-vibe day.”  And the girl in the long flowing dress asks, “Because it’s judgment day?”  Yes, they all agree, because it’s judgment day. 

So, the skinny girl with skinny hips and wild Shakira curls, steps out of her curtained-in dressing room, in the skinniest cigarette jeans you ever saw, sucking into her skinny-tanned crevices like a hand vacuum.  Her wild black hair hangs down her breast, her white lace bralette, and she says, “What’s going on out here?”

Oh!  He thinks, putting down his phone with a ghastly warning from his mother, I need to photograph you.  I need to immortalize this beautiful moment, where a guy gets stabbed in front of the Apple Pan, and you come out, like a little nymph, with your wild curls and your skinny legs.  “I’m gonna make you famous,” he says, and he takes out his smart phone.  And this is her big break, immortalized as someone’s cell-phone desktop picture.  “Well, golly!”  And she shakes her full head of curls to the right, and looks shy at the camera, her white bra pointed.

So, today’s judgment day.  And this is true because some rich pastor bought a bunch of billboards across the globe, and told everyone: May 21, 2011.  5-21-2011… and you’d think the accumulation of numbers would be more interesting...like a bunch of ones, or a bunch of sixes, or even sevens.  Nope, just five-two-one-two-zero-one-one.  Just like a phone number.   

A girl, sloppy drunk, tells a boy, who’s not so sloppy drunk, “call me.”  “What’s your number?” he asks.  And it’s judgment day.  Don’t call her, buddy.  She won’t remember anyway.  Plus, it’s judgment day.  And it’s a bad omen.  Ask anyone; it’s a bad omen.

And I don’t care if I die poor.  As long as I’m famous. 

Mother's Day

Mother dearest... the only e-mail subscribed to my blog feed... I've abandoned updates on this, but after I post this, you'll get an automatic e-mail.  You'll check it on your orange iPad2, while watching 60 minutes or a pre-recorded reality show.  And damn those automatic e-mails!  So hasty, and you forward them to all your tennis friends before I get to edit all the grammatical errors.  And to be honest, you only have one tennis friend... Hi Sandy.  Maybe Sherry too, but I don't think she cares for you much.

And did you both enjoy your Palm Springs rendezvous?  I'm sure you did. 

You're probably expecting a sappy Mother's Day letter.  And no siree.  This is public, so I'm not going to get all mushy.  I'll say one thing.  This past Sabbath, when I was Orthodox for a day (and don't get me started on that bitch Erica Schwartz), I missed you painfully.  But, maybe I'll regress and mention Erica for a quick second... in her bucket hat and skirt suit.  Besides the obvious truth that I'm a lucky bastard that you're my mother, as chance would have it, and not the bitch Erica, I'm lucky you're so hip... a bit sacrilegious...but, the most spiritual individual I ever did see.  See, Erica's religious, but cold as stone... spiritually void.  When I'm down and out, you say something so darn zen about energy or the universe, or some new age crap like that.  And all those SECRET-type books on your bookshelf... Divine Wisdom...guides to a centered self.  I remember your meditation story... about how you met Jesus one afternoon in our backyard.  Erica could never manifest the spiritual divination of Jesus, even if she really wanted to.

Does it bother me that your cooler than me?  I think that's subjective.  Who's to say what's really cool... and what isn't.  But, no, it doesn't at all. 

So, mom... I'm going to put on a mineral mask with you and Chelsea... I'm going to post this and, if all goes as planned, I'll join you on the couch, catch the middle of 60 minutes, and maybe during a commercial break, you can read this.  I'll watch you read it, of course.

Happy Mother's Day.

Corsair Snippet- Volume XCV, Issue 6

Distasteful Rambling

Panda, my bow-legged designer dog, ate the bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Two hours later, she's yacking all over the damn place, chunky bile that smells like chocolate malt.

To the animal hospital, where there are girlie girls in blue scrubs and howling dogs in the back (it sounds like a full moon).  "Sit in this room," and we do.  Panda's behind the scenes and the two of us are sitting quiet in this white and metal room.  Then, she walks in.  First, I just see her thigh-high boots, then her mini dress, and her white lab coat.  She walks in, stilettos puncturing the cheap linoleum floor and... wait a second, she turns, clipboard in her right hand... and her left side's facing me... and she's got no arm.  Her white lab coat is folded back neatly with a safety pin.  Bless her heart.  Suddenly, it's okay.  It's okay that she's dressed like a major slut because she only has one arm.  My heart goes out to her.  And she goes through her clipboard, crossing off the to-do list.  "First," she says in a professional manner, "we're going to induce vomit with an injection of Toxi-ban...then, a Cerenia injection..." and she goes on, spitting out Vet lingo and "fluid maintenance" and "fluid pump" and "fluid what-not."  And bless her soul.  She's got spunk.

Spring Forward Party

First, the magnitude nine, then the tsunami.  And nuclear reactors.  How many is it now?

I'm at Coffee Bean as the world spins to an end, drinking a light roast of house-brew.  It's subtle and sprite; a quick tang, then mellow.  Italian light roast.

Our own technology is our own demise.  "Like Atlantis!"  Exactly like Atlantis, that fool-proof plan.  It's change of course.  And you say, "It's change, of course!"  

And with change, comes death.  And with death, comes birth.  It's one cyclic hum-drum routine of beginning then end, then beginning again.  Yeah, we get it.

So, the Spring Forward Party: morning of, I was in the kitchen roasting vegetables, sweeping the floor, watching CNN.  A pretty typical day, except there's the tsunami, that foaming wave.  Little cars and little buildings swirl and sink in the white froth.  Like breakfast cereal, drowning cheerios. 
That's in the morning.

I'm going to take a shower and the drain's clogged, so I'm up to my ankles in dirty water, strands of hair floating and a daddy long legs all clumped up.

The evening approaches and the floors are swept, the vegetables are roasted, and the tv's off.  (And if I recall correctly, it was tallied at two nuclear power plants and a thousand deaths.)

And the doorball rings!  Oh, goody!  Let me smack some pink on my lips and greet our guests like a proper host: with a hearty welcome!  I scramble to the door, but she gets it first.  "Hello!" and please come in.  I'm out of breath from scrambling.  Drinks?  Let's all go to the main room.  And like a flight attendant, I signal my hands 'this way.'  The clock's ticking and I'm on my second glass of merlot and (later in the night) when everyone's in the living room playing bonfire songs (Greenday's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)," naturally) with knee-clapping and tambourine rattles, I've almost forgotten.  The girls are up and twirling and the boys are banging the drums... it's very tribal.  And we're all drinking and falling deeper.

I'm playing the harmonica and stomping my foot and slapping my thigh (my hand and foot are bruised) and they tell me I'm off tune.  It's heart-breaking.

Oh and there's revolution in the Middle East.  That too, but back to the party.

I can't think.  No, siree.  I see him in the kitchen, so, I go, I swagger, and I'm looking straight at him.  "You know," I say, "the world's going to end."  He laughs.
"Honest to god," and I'm smiling, standing against the fridge.  He says something about my hair, but I'm bending my back and swaying my hips forward.  And the moment ends, somebody walks in, just like that- and that's this whole night, a big pause---like a baby right before a big scream, the intake of air, the quiet gulp, and you close your eyes because you're expecting a terrible sound... but nothing... it's just a yawn.  That's this night.  Back into the main room with the camp-fire songs and the kumbayas.

Later, I'm pouring wine into a plastic tumbler.  "Red or white?" I ask her.  "Red stains your teeth," and she's laughing.

It's a drag to wake up the very next morning, with a headache and red teeth- at that!  Another nuclear reactor and a thousand more dead.

The perfect weather for a stroll in the park: it's a bit chilly, so bring a sweater, but the sun's out.

"G" dash "D"

My wine tastes like honey and wood… and it might be the pieces of cork floating in my glass, but I don’t think so.  I hold the stem and keep my pinky in.  It’s a Friday night and I should be out, but I’m too tired.  So, instead I’m typing.  My computer’s broken and Japan’s in shambles.  And this week; this god-damn week. 

Working the polls and all poll workers, and this is a rigid fact, mind you---with no exception, save for my sister and me--- all poll workers are either dirt old or physically handicapped.  Don’t ask me why. 

This past Tuesday, Chelsea and I worked the polls with Cora.  And Cora’s a senior-citizen with a cat named “Hunky.”  And Cora’s a cunt.  I feel bad for her, but she goes on tangents and loves rules.  “Last year,” she says matter-of-factly, “students worked the polls… and they’re the best.  You send them down the street for a sandwich, and they couldn’t be happier.”   

So, Cora’s picking fights with all the other precinct poll workers, yelling at them to turn their chairs around to face the voting booths, so that they abide by general poll-working law.  She’s on a rampage and by the time the polls open, all the people are sitting at their booths, facing the wall.  Golly gosh, Cora, but your heart goes out to her as she sits, mid-way through the voting day, talking about her indolent mother and she’s laughing nervously, “She’s shriveled to nothing.”  And she’s laughing, but looking straight ahead, “But, uh, no… I was always an inch taller than her, but… no…” And she’s now looking down, fidgeting with some papers, and it’s that moment when I sort of like Cora because she’s kind of vulnerable.  But, she fucks it all up, and starts arguing with a voter about his vote-by-mail registration.   

Cora likes her oatmeal with a packet of Sweet N’ Low, a splash of maple syrup (for flavor), and a pinch of salt.  “Nothing’s sweet unless you have that pinch of salt,” she says.  Cora’s a packet of salt and a pinch of sugar.

At the end of last week, and I don’t remember where we were… probably late-night happy hour on Santa Monica Boulevard, where the sushi’s not that great and there’s too much vinegar in the rice.  Was it U-Zen Sushi where she shared the parable about the monk and the sage?  And the gist of it was that the sage answered the monk with a “God does not exist” retort.  It’s the word “God” that gets lost in translation and I ask her if she’s heard of ‘Yahweh.’  "Who’s Yahweh?"  Never mind. 

And some people say that Los Angeles is a godless city.  And that’s not true at all.  That’s Las Vegas.  No!  It can’t be if you really think about it because it’s a bunch of people, on the very brink of wavering faith, kissing their di before a roll, and, I bet you, hands down, there’s more communication with God at the craps table than there is at the Vatican… and then, god-willing, they win a land-fall and hire a prostitute.

Did you ever notice that religious leaders have the most difficult time with the acceptance of God?  The big “G,” “O,” “D.”  I ask this at U-Zen, or wherever we are, and nobody agrees.  But, it’s true and my dad’s a Rabbi and, for most my life, I went around thinking he didn’t believe in God.  And I’ve asked him countless times, “But, how can you be a Rabbi and not believe in God?”  And it’s not about God, he says.  But, yeah, it kind of is.  There are times, and it’s not when he’s preaching at the pew, but sitting in his lazy boy recliner, when it comes out… when, all of a sudden, he says something, he trip-falls, and says something so darn, undeniably, reverent.  It’s being in the profession of God that you’re two sides of the dime, the most pious and the most blasphemous.  It’s very oxymoronic.  And there’s no such thing as unwavering faith.

And life is one big oxymoron.  My mother, a convert, dubbed by the congregation as “the shiksa rebbetson,” is talking to me, laptop heating up her thighs, playing Snood.  I ask her if she feels Jewish, “Yeah, I guess so.”  And she goes on, “I suppose, I wasn’t one thing or the other… it’s a sense of community.”  And she’s telling me about how she felt it immediately, after meeting my dad, because she always wanted some sort of connection to something… and this was it.  All of a sudden, she’s quiet.
She’s fidgeting with her computer and she’s clicking the mouse, but the screen’s frozen.  “This is so fucked… I don’t know why it’s like this.”

Little Worlds in Los Angeles

LITTLE TEHRAN
On Westwood Boulevard, you walk past store-fronts of carpet shops and small markets with doors opened wide- it smells like dates and cardamon.  Farsi scribbled on neon signs and Persian music plays through scratched radios.

And there's the local ice cream joint: Rose and Saffron Ice Cream.  I like it because it's creamy and sweet... with rose water, saffron, and pistachio, and the best part isn't the ice cream, but the cubes of sweet milk, the white squares amidst a scoop of electric yellow.  We're eating home-churned ice cream out of styrofoam cups and it's not like Baskin Robbins, it's a bit gooier.  When it melts, it's like a thick syrup.  And it's fragrant like perfume.  It's not sweet like artificial candy, but mellow and tart and full-bodied.

CHINATOWN
Yesterday, I was with Austin and Danielle, Downtown.  Something about dim sum and beer.  The dim sum's quasi-cheap and loaded with MSG, curry spice and sweet bread and fried noodles.  Round tables and a parking lot attendant with rhinestone glasses- he's fearless and he gets behind Austin's car, in reverse, and reprimands his driving skills and laughs.  Inside is crowded and it's a dim sum restaurant, but there's no dim sum on the menu.

LITTLE TOKYO
After, we drive around and we search for this beer festival, or maybe it's not... I'm not sure what it is, but we never find it and instead we park around Little Tokyo and there's an outside cultural concert that just finished and everybody's getting ready to leave, disrobing the stage and disassembling the chairs, as costumed drummers in palm leaves and head-dresses walk by.  We walk forward and there's a manicured zen garden and fountain.  "Take a picture of it," Danielle says...but, "it's too pretty," Austin says.  And it's too picture perfect as an Asian boy hop-scotches over a small bridge as his mother follows.

Chinatown's grimy with cheap knock-offs, boom boxes, and a guy in the street who's playing the Guzheng, but Little Tokyo is prim and proper and clean with lamp posts and 14 year old girls who sing karaoke in the smack-middle of a square.  It's very yin and yang.

Down one narrow passage-way, between two brick buildings with fire escapes, is an open patio.  It's a weird time, late afternoon, right before it gets dark, so we sit and order two dark beers on tap and one spicy ginger brew.  We talk about Leonard Nimoy, Slash, and Martha Washington, and, before we know it, the sky dims and when you look up, strings of lights sparkle.

Barcelona: Waiting for Eurail

Barcelona, Catalunya, with lisps and melting buildings and Las Ramblas.  I get lost in Barcelona and I'm stuck in this city for much longer than expected because I'm waiting for my Rail Pass, but I can't communicate with the Spanish Post Office to coordinate the retrieval of my Express package.

A chandelier swaying from a high ceiling

I remember being stuck in southern Spain six years before with my mom and sister, eating ketchup and water--- and Granada and Tariffa and Seville, then driving to Portugal (where we meet the Turnbulls)... and in Granada, sitting inside this old building of musk and straw and spit, on the second floor, with this rickety old ladder, drinking cream tea after seeing the Alhambra at night and the sky is black and all the stars are bright and bats fly overhead--- and the god damn gypsies, who chase you with bundles of rosemary and sage in each hand.

And now, six years later, I'm back in Spain, but this time in Barcelona.  For the first few days, I'm by myself, but then I stay with Nicola and Duncan and their giant two year old daughter who's awfully smart (and awfully cheeky).  In Barcelona, there's a beach, but all the sand is imported from Morocco, or so they say, and it's not really sand because it's not grainy, and it sticks to you like glitter.  Afterwards, we drink cerveza and eat seafood on the ocean-front as tanned limbs prance by.

I eat Mexican food in Spain and, to be completely honest, it's not that great, a bit bland, and I drink margarita with salt on the brim. 

One night, I sort of mingle with a bunch of English-teachers-in-training at the Stock Market Bar and the prices rise and lower every three minutes and the trick is to order the drinks that have crashed, highlighted in red, that are dirt cheap.  I find this out after I've ordered my two drinks.  I'm speaking to this guy with a goatee, curly brown hair, and an Irish accent.  He says, "Yeah, man," a lot and he's talking about his crazy Spanish ex girlfriend.  Yes, I'm sure he's Irish and I'm waiting for a pause in-between his crazy ex-girlfriend rant so I can interject, "And where in Ireland are you from?"  I want to impress him with my accent GPS skills.  "No," he says, "Toronto."  And I finish my Strongbow and get the hell out of there--- and, for some reason, I can't get my bearings in Barcelona.  And Toronto, what an asshole.

So, Spain is the gateway for me.  I walk a lot and I buy gogi berries at the candy shop, sitting on a bench at the Arc de Triomf, thinking about where to go next.  Pakistani men hug me at the zoo and I keep walking straight, trying to find the Picasso Museum, but I walk too far and reach the ocean and then get lost inside of a Catholic Church.  Spain's dirty and the people are dark and skinny.  And my last day in Barcelona, a drizzling Monday afternoon, I finally find the Picasso Museum after weeks of searching, which is apparently closed on Mondays, and it's down a narrow alley where the buildings are ancient and squeezed too tight and tapas are over-priced.

Around 4 PM, one early evening, I'm sitting in this posh restaurant, in the no-smoking section, in an isolated dark room with cracked red leather, next to two silver men, one German and one Spaniard, who are smoking it up, drinking cognac (probably...how typical) in wide, short glasses.  "Should we stop smoking?" they ask me as they exhale rings of smoke and the waiter, with his left arm bent forward, a towel hanging from it, and his right arm behind his back, looking like a caricature, stares right at me.  "No, please don't," I say and my voice sounds small.  They buy me a champagne, except it's not champagne because it's Spanish... and I'm already drinking a pequena jug of wine... but I'm too polite to say 'no.'  I'm eating salmon carpaccio and the slices are so thin that they're transparent, like fogged pink glass, and I'm getting drunk...too drunk and I don't want to be.  "On the house," they tell me and they serve me a shot glass of coffee "con whiskey," but I suck it back.

Israel: Part Two

"You have to give them attitude, if you want their respect," my mom tells me.  So, when I'm in Israel, I'm insulting Israelis left and right.  First you have to break them, then smile sweetly, and then break them again.  And I don't make that many friends, but I command respect and get a black eye.

In Jerusalem, I reunite with long-lost cousins, Shalva and Simon and Michael and Jeremy and Batya (who likes Twilight, and loves Edward and Abercrombie and Fitch).  It's all a mind-twirl.  And late nights in Jerusalem, with soccer being projected onto white screens, and purple swirls of hookah smoke.  In Israel, you can drink in the streets, so you purchase the big bottles of Goldstar and sit on a high cement ledge, and let your legs dangle like a schoolgirl.  And there's the skateboarder who I keep seeing, who's always red-eyed and dazed, and he keeps falling off his board and scuffing his knees.

And after Jerusalem, there's Motti, who shows me around Tel Aviv, the nooks and crannies of this urban sprawl, with lots of Ping Pong on the beach and speedos and techno.  Motti shows me the ins and outs, the ropes.  This small kitchenette, misplaced between fruit vendors and a guy who sells Levi's knock-offs, is packed.  Minced meats with cilantro and garlic sizzling on the fry, as pasta's tossed.  This is the street food in Tel Aviv, hummus whipped like butter and doused in syrupy olive oil.  It's this thick smell of sweat and fry... and yes, malt beverages.  The next day, Motti takes me to Jaffa, where I pause for the next few days. 

When we first get to Jaffa, it's hot, but the Mediterranean Sea is turquoise and cool.  "I'm going to take you for the best food," Motti says and he parks on a steep hill.  Outside is dingy and inside is dingier with white walls and long picnic tables and, mostly, Arabic men speaking loud and soaking warmed pita into bowls of garbanzo and strange bean and oil, ornamented with chili flakes.  Is it Egyptian?  I think that's what he tells me.  And it's thick and sour and warm and, for the rest of the day, I'm stuffed.

Jaffa is brown ruins and blue sea and one tall clock tower.  And every so often, throughout the day, one mosque starts to sing through the megaphone speakers and another mosque, two blocks away, competes... and then a third... and a fourth.  And it's rivaling mosques with booming speakers and the city rattles.  And where do these mosques get their sound equipment?  Best Buy? 

I stay in a Moorish-type youth hostel, in my private room with private bath (how decadent).  It's yellow and green, looking down through a cathedral-type window, onto the broken down street.  It's beautiful; black-cobble stone charm, rough and tough, with flea market hustlers and strings of dirty rainbow-colored light-bulbs, twisting around the lamp-posts.  There's a skyline of the Tel Aviv metropolis.  It comforts me in some sick way.  There are the ruins of this ancient sea-port town, peeling pink buildings, Israelis arguing, and hostelers bonding (random, jigsaw people with no coordination and jagged edges), and the skyline.  On the roof of this hostel, it's very Moroccan and red and yellow and blue; there are mattresses to lie and chairs to sit... and a communal kitchen and constant music.  Sitting on the roof-top, on the edge, looking down at the twinkling lights of late-night dives.  The mosques are singing, cars are honking, a radio is humming, a plane is roaring, and a bell is chiming.  The end.

Israel: Part One

A Jerusalem Sketch

Israel's hot.  It's brown and messy with unpolished silver, hot tea sipped in glass cups... that kind of thing.

Israel's a big flirt.  Paris flirts too, but Paris is sluttier.

Israel's mystical and grungy.  It's four cardboard walls stapled together and somehow it stands straight up.

Israeli soldiers, in their muddy green outfits, red berets, pants tucked into their shoe-shined boots, and a rifle criss-crosses their chest.  And through all my traveling, never have I met people more devoted to their country.

It's mismatched, biblical ruins on the street-sides and shawarma.  It's quartered and sectioned-off and there's no real explanation to this controversial parcel of land, the approximate size of New Jersey.

It's Israel... and it is said that my father's father stood on a corner, in his Eastern European shtetl of Antepol, Poland, and, way before 1947 and the Six Day War, he spoke passionately about returning to the homeland.  And in these shtetles, Hebrew was the language you studied, but Yiddish was the language you spoke, but he defied that, on a soapbox, in the middle of the square, speaking in Hebrew, telling the people to go to Israel.  And that's what Hilda says.  Hilda said, "he had a million dollar brain with a ten cent screw."  He spoke in Hebrew, a little before Hertzl, and he never went.

I come from seven or eight generations of Rabbis, this lineage of clergymen... it's the family business.  And then my father, with five daughters and no sons... no Rabbis to continue the familial tradition.  I go to Israel with Birthright, at first, one week and a half, and then travel this country for about a month after wards, maybe a little less.

And there's Jerusalem.  It's the biblical city with white buildings that look like chalk, dotting brown mountainsides, and old patchwork stones.  Clotheslines zig-zag in the distance.  And Old Jerusalem, the tour-guides with their red flags and the tourists with fanny packs and orthotic sandals, is over-crowded. Sight-seers and religious zealots jam-packed into this small city.  It's extremism to the max with black burkas and white tzit tzit.  Of course, it's overwhelming and it gives you a panic attack to stand in the center; your clothes cling to you, drenched in sweat, as swarms of people swish past.

The Kotel, this Western Wall, King Solomon's temple, the ideal Masonic form, with pigeons cooped inside gaps in the wall, looking down and cooing.  Folded paper crammed between the slabs, and green moss spilling over.  It's still chaos because there's singing and praying and people walking backwards.  Squat women with long black skirts touch it, their head turned down, bawling.  It's the people, rocking back and forth.  It's the plastic white lawn chairs and it's the pigeons.  First, you wait in line and people cut in front of you, but you wisen up and elbow your way up to the front.  You face the slabs of weathered stone and you're so close you can kiss it.  You look up at this wall and marvel, "This was in the Bible."  (I never read the Bible; I studied it, but that's it.)  And when I'm at this wall, which I studied for countless years in grade school (with pop quizzes and finals), all the sounds hush and I squeeze my folded paper into a crease between two stones.  There's this buzz, like a television set to mute, and this static.  This is my moment with the wall, white pigeons staring down.  When I'm done, I walk backwards because that's what they tell me to do.  "Never," they say, "have your back turned to the wall."

And there's the shuk, the public market, with dates and fruit and nuts, haggling, no plastic bags, and no standard health practices.  The orthodox and the secular, scrambling for last-minute deals, before the Shabbos.

And there's the Dead Sea, it burns your scabs as you float.  Sulphur baths that smell like rotten eggs.  You pay for entry and then you take a shuttle, but I walk because the shuttle just left... and there are signs, water-marks where the sea used to be, and I walk past "1999" and "2000" and then, as it gets closer to the stinging water, "2009" and "2010."  It's too much salt for life to exist...the lowest elevation on this planet.  It's a good 15 minute walk.  And soon, this narrow strip of water will dry up.  You finally reach the water, and people float by you.  And just across the way, not so far-off, there's Jordan.

So, it starts with birthright, traveling alongside forty-or-so Jewish young adults, still gangly and still baby-faced.  It's ten days, going from one place to the next, sitting in an air-conditioned bus, as this massive vehicle snakes around narrow cliffs.  It's hyper-accelerated and it's like speed-dating.  There's no time to sleep or really connect or process.  This is the Wailing Wall and this is the Dead Sea and this is King David's toilet.  And it's a ten day blur of name games and icebreakers.  There's the girl who, every two days, is with a different fellow, and she leaves a messy trail of boys in her wake.  And there are two religious kids and there are cliques.

With no time to waste, ten days later, after beckoning my fellow birthrighters farewell at the airport, I'm hopping trains to Haifa with Tzlil, the armed guard.  It's Goldstars at the pub and the next morning, just before she drops me off at the bus station (where, for the first time in ten days, I'm all alone and my bus is late), I meet her grandma.  She's a holocaust survivor from Hungary and she can't speak English and I can't speak Hebrew, but I like her.  She feeds me fiber cereal.

Why I Hate Betsy Ross

Last minute, Birthright has an open space.  Somehow, I have to get to Philadelphia in four days.  I buy my ticket and Philadelphia is the scariest pace I've ever been.  After my 5AM plane arrival, I shuttle to downtown.  The air's thick and curdled.  There's no wind- nothing; it's still and flat and hot as hell.  I manage to be there for, maybe, half a day, and, in that time, I sleep on a bench, get the stink eye from Betsy Ross (that "patriotic" cow), and become a charity case for a Chasidic family, living in the outskirts of this terrible city.  Shlomo picks me up in his silver minivan and he drives me to his air-conditioned home.  They offer me cold pasta and orange juice and water and bed and shower and I'm ever so grateful.  And thank you.  Thank you.  And their five children and mother and father and in-law and so on and so on.  It's bazaar, but this is Philadelphia.  They drop me off at the train-stop, and I shuttle to the station.  And on that train, I sit next to this Jordanian Jew with frazzled ringlets springing down his back, who happens to be on Birthright also (and for the next ten days, we end up being seat-partners on the bus).

So, that's all I have to say about Philadelphia.  It's a hell-hole, but I appreciate Shlomo and his family.  And yes, I understand the historical relevance of this god-forsaken city.  Yeah, Betsy Ross, I'm including you.  You did a beautiful job with the American flag.  You're stellar.  Good for you.  And although you gave me the coldest, dead-on glare, I'll give you credit for being able to operate a sewing machine.  Or was it hand-stitched?  Regardless, there's needle and thread.  Good going Betsy. 

Anyways, it's from Philadelphia, that I embark to Israel.  It's ten days with forty coming-of-age strangers (and two Rabbis)... and after that, it's three months of something else.  But, it's the beginning that explains everything.  From the beginning, comes the middle, and then the end.  So, this is my beginning.  This is my account of what happened after I encountered that hand-stitching Betsy and Benjamin too, who happens to be a pretty nice guy.  It's my three months abroad, with my squeaking New Balance nine-nine-threes (and why do they always squeak, like I was just walking through the rain...it must be the inserts) and my buckled gray backpack. 

And it begins in Philadelphia.  But, in Israel, it gets a little better.

ATTN: MALAYSIANS

I didn't know it when I did it, but now it's bothering me to high heaven.  It's Durbervilles, not Dubervilles.  There's an 'R' missing.  And I'm trying to play it off like it doesn't matter, like it was all planned.  It's too late to change it.

And wait a second, does anybody else get lots of traffic from Malaysia?  Because, almost every day, I get Malaysians accessing my blog.  And it's usually from sites like badloancredit.com or jenniferanistonpencuro.nicepro.net, where Malaysians get re-directed to my blog.  If you're Malaysian and reading this, please help me understand this weird phenomena.  How did my blog tap into your country's radar?  I'm not complaining in the least.  And, in fact, this whole experience has compelled me to one day travel to your great country.  But, why?  Why Dubervilles, which is a complete failure of a Thomas Hardy reference.  And I'm going to keep it Dubervilles because it's too late and maybe it means something.  But, why Malaysia?

Sounds like a one-night stand

Jean Marc is so darn beautiful.  It's his molasses lashes that curl up into his pale lids.  And his pink lips pout, "I watched my father die for six months."  God, he's grim.  And he blinks twice.  I keep calling him Jean Paul.
He sits next to me on the wood bench, splinters stapling into our thighs, and he tells me that he watched his father die for six months.  Nice to meet you too.  We get along swell and we walk around the grounds of a monastery and a gust of hot halitosis wind (it smells like bathroom here) blows off my straw hat, down into the running stream.  And he dives in after it.  No he doesn't, I'm lying.  He just watches it float away and he blinks.  He's so beautiful.  Isn't it weird that he loses his hat too?  But that happens later.
When does it happen?  I think it's when he's complimenting my teeth.  His face is too close to mine, I can feel his exhale on the ridge of my nose and I can smell his flesh.  He's looking down at my teeth, my gleaming kernels, my pearly whites, telling me that I have the most beautiful teeth he's ever seen, east of the Andes.  It's that moment, him looking down, admiring my teeth, when I kiss him.  After wards, he realizes he lost his hat.  "Isn't that weird?" he asks. 
We know each other for six hours.  I know all about his father and mother and his estranged brothers.  About India and Nepal and those heroin smugglers in Pakistan, who were the most hospitable people you ever met.  At the end of the sixth hour, we're sitting in the open courtyard, just off of the main Khao San Road, drinking a soda and a Singha, and we've already fought twice (I can't remember about what).  And we kiss goodbye because his bus is leaving and I'm going home.  "I'll miss you," he tells me.  And how can you miss someone you just met?  And there's a black-out on the road, while I'm sitting at the last open restaurant, slurping red curry.

And now, while writing this, thinking about Jean Marc, Chelsea comes in, asking me what I'm doing.  "She's a ball of nerves," she keeps saying, and then she adds, "I see that now."  And I keep thinking about that girl, that ball of nerves, with the red rash on her freckled neck and her collar bone; it looks like a hand print.  When we were at the church with the Gothic chandeliers, Chelsea and I partook in the holy communion.  Grape juice and wafer, kindergarten snacks.  But, it's that girl's rash, which Chelsea calls, "a severe case of eczema."

And were you ever speaking to someone and forgot what you looked like?  I remember being in Tel Aviv (or was it Edinburgh?) and speaking to her on my rented cell phone (that I eventually lost) and she was crying and I was crying.  One sloppy sob fest.  The two of us crying like big old babies.  And she's reassuring me, "I'm okay!  Really, I am."  And she's crying in hiccups.  And I'm crying too because it's so damn sad and I don't remember what I look like.  I can give vague generalizations: brown hair, brown eyes, mouth, nose. etcetera.  But, nothing beyond that. 

Before Winter

Outside is missionary-white stucco and a Virgin Mary statue.  But, inside are vaulted ceilings and widow's peak archways.  It's stone and stunning as mosaic light streams through stained glass windows.  The pastor stands at his podium, and speaks in his West Virginian drawl.  And when he speaks, his voice sounds raspy, like a scratched record.  He's talking about Jesus Christ and the apostles, about missed opportunities and the river's ebb.  And he says that Paul, speaking to a jailer, asks "Where is Timothy?"  And the jailer responds, "You did not hear?"  And Paul did not.  "Timothy has been dead for three months."

And the white-haired pastor, keeps chanting the phrase, "Come before winter," and it's harsh the way he says it.  "Come before winter," he says.

I call him, when I'm in London.  "I'm coming," I tell him on his answering machine.  The next day she calls back.  Faye, in her hoarse whisper, asks, "You did not hear?"  "No," I tell her, "I did not."  For three months, my uncle has been dead.  And my bowling-ball gut drops down two stories, rupturing the polished wood floor.

"Come before winter," and the pastor's words spring back and forth, from one stone-cold wall to the other.  And I'm out of place and I don't belong here.

There's the Christian twins with their white turtlenecks and curly bouffants, gold-chain necklaces and cross pendants, who carry clipboards and smile, and you can't tell one from the other.  Four church members stand, two men and two women.  They carry gold-plated trays, Jesus' flesh and blood.  The holy communion.  And wafer sticks to the roof of my mouth and sweet grape juice slips down the back of my throat.

The Stench of Cologne

Lightning Strikes at the Dom Cathedral

You have your key out and you're so close to making it, but no such luck.  At first, you try to stop it, but as water pours down, out of your jeans and into the carpet, you just give in.  "Okay," you think, "I'll pee."  Nobody's around anyway and you're by yourself, except for the blinking security camera, but it just doesn't matter anymore.  The next morning, you're paranoid and you think the people at the front desk are talking about you.  And for the next two days, you walk around with a plastic bag tied in a double knot, carrying your mildewed jeans, still wet with pee.

I hate Cologne.  The first night, I lose my wallet and I pee my pants; it's one bad thing after another.  There's something about this city that just doesn't mesh well with me.   It's bad chemistry.  There's the Gothic back-drop of the Dom Cathedral and it's dark and disconcerting.  Before beginning my trip, I prep for this.  "On my travels, there will be one day, " I tell myself, "when everything will go wrong and I'll be pushed and tested and defeated."  That day is Cologne.

Outside this broken-down hostel, left, and then straight, there's the Dom Cathedral.  It's too tall and when you look up, with your back bent and your neck cranked, you can't see where it ends.  It's frightening, sticking out like a sore thumb, with Gothic ridges and flying buttresses and tinted windows.  And somebody tells me (or did I read it somewhere?) that it took seven centuries to build this cathedral.  And it's just a number, but if you really think about it, that's 700 years of stone-laying.  There's constant rain and thunder and when you look up at the tower, lightning strikes, and I swear you can hear the off-key chords of an out-of-tune organ.

There's always an accordion playing, the asthmatic aerophone, wheezing in and out.  It's usually my favorite instrument, but in Cologne, it's plain old creepy.  Strange men follow you.  And the street performers watch you, and when you sit on a bench, trying to figure out where you are or what you're doing, they play to you.  "Tip please," and they look at their empty jar with puppy-dog eyes.  "But," you try to explain, "I have no money and I'm all alone."

In the city center, stages are built and tents are pitched for a summer concert series.  The three days that I'm there, it's constant sound and disarray.  There's too many people and too much noise and it's just a hot-bed mess of over-activity.  People, red-eyed and jittery, stand around, slurping free cans of Coca-Cola while music blasts from megawatt speakers.  It's too much.  The streets bend and I get lost down narrow corridors.

Down one street, it's pitch quiet.  A car is flipped over.  Shards of broken glass speck the pavement like glitter.  Police officers and pedestrians stand on the sidewalk, quiet as hell- no sirens, nothing- staring at this upside-down vehicle, this mess of twisted metal, wheels turned up, like a dead dog.  "Something is wrong," they ponder, "but what is it?"  And they scratch their chins.

Night-time Finances

Kitschy french curtains and my reflection

Gross.  We're all sitting, all five or six of us; the number changes throughout the night.  First, it's two.  Then, four.  And then five, and the number keeps climbing up.  And we sit in this Japanese-turned-hipster-sort-of-atmosphere, with liquid tofu that coagulates into a solid after three minutes, and bacon-wrapped mushrooms and controversial photographers and aspiring fashion moguls and painted black walls.  It's just a whole mish-mosh mess of people.  And the thick-ankled waitress who, it seems, can't get one thing right.  Poor thing, her energy's off-kilter.  Bad feng shui.  Her bed's probably facing a mirror.

So, we drink too much sake and we drink too much Asahi.  There's too many toasts and one toast, in particular, by the sixth participant, is directed to the Chinese year of the Rabbit.  And that's exactly what she says as she holds up her porcelain shot-glass, maintaining eye contact with the rest of the six-personed party.  "To the year of the Bunny!"  Cheers.  "And what does the rat signify," I ask her.  Rat?  They're confused.  No, bunny.  Oh.  "And what does the bunny signify?"  It's old re-kindled friendships and a whole bunch of nostalgic junk.  Interesting.  And number four, who sits across from me, with his high-tech digital, is snapping somewhat-posed candids, tilting his camera every which way.  And a glass cup falls to the floor into eight or nine shambles, liquid everywhere.  And he shoots that too.  A lightning bulb flashes and everything in this dimly-lit room lights up for a quick moment, then goes back to normal.

Hah!  Then, something happens.  For a second, everyone's very quiet.  Their faces are rectangled-out by iphones, and they're thumbs are too animated, and they dial in twitter-updates.  Something about "Don't sweat the petty things, but don't pet the sweaty things," another toast said by number three, with a lipstick-red turban wrapped around her skull.  And everyone's a bit tipsy.  The bill comes, which is a smaller amount than what's originally anticipated, and I throw a crinkled 20 dollar bill into the crease of the table.  The gentlemen, with their statement-eye-wear, frames slightly too big for their faces, stare ahead.  But, they look beautiful.  And the ladies, dressed to the nines, but lacking any sort of effort of course- like they were born in these clothes, and what's a girl to do?  Change her outfit?  After all these years?

Four of these people continue their evening onwards and the two of us cut it short.  And the night ends up in his kitchen, kitschy French-drapes partly open.  And outside his window is black.

Asparagus and Hollandaise: Finding the Eiffel

Oui, Je suis en Paris (and I didn't earn most-improved French student, three years in a row, for nothing), drifting on the river something or other.  Seine.  Insane on the Seine.  Drinking cheap merlot and eating bing cherries, getting lost, finding the Eiffel Tower.  Maybe I'm sleep-deprived, but when I see that iron lattice, melded at its stiff joints, standing upright, there's this gust of emotion.  I want to cry and laugh and just point at the silly old thing. 

I've been avoiding Paris.  I've dreaded it, especially the Parisians- and prissy little pomps, can you blame them?  With back-drops like this?  Living up to this?  With their handbags and matching shoes, their couture waistbands and oh-so-posh stance, pouting their lips like ducks.  Can you blame them?  Of course not, what a stupid question.  And although I'd rather opt to go to Brussels than Paris, my godmother calls me crazy and compares peas to asparagus drizzled in hollandaise sauce.  And I like peas just fine, but I understand the "it's a whole different ball park, kiddo"  pith.  I get the opportunity to sleep on the River Seine, a friend of a friend, floating right beside the Musee D'Orsay, and how can a girl say no?  Well, she can't.

There's always music, always something, and old stone slabs with ornate carvings.  And here I am, drinking cheap merlot, amidst it all, hormones all awry.  I don't know where I'll be tomorrow, but at this very second, it just doesn't matter because I'm in Paris and tomorrow I won't be.  I'm all alone on this boat, waiting for Olivier and Sonja to return, so we can pop open that champagne I bought for myself, but now am sharing due to mis-communication (in good company, all for the best), and now I'm stuck with this fruity cheap shit in the meantime that's not so bad to be honest (and for some reason I can't get drunk in Paris... but maybe I am, but doubt it).  Your lips get stained and you smile in a dopey way.  Why do Europeans love spliffs? 

I don't know why, but I couldn't find the Eiffel tower.  I was searching for it the whole day, carrying a baguette and fromage around in a plastic baggy, looking for the tower.  It shouldn't be this difficult.  I'm told the Eiffel is merely blocks away, but I spend the whole afternoon (and then some) making three left turns and finding myself back where I started.  I get lost on a high-end street with stilettos puncturing the sidewalk and couples canoodling and toy poodles.  Finally, with some dumb luck (or maybe I just decided to look up), I see it in the skyline, topping over classical buildings of limestone and Parisian balconies.  I twist and turn down allies, searching for the base of this structure and finally, up the parkway and up the path, I reach my destination.

Its iron frame is bigger than you might expect and it's a bit overwhelming because after a whole day of searching, it's this revelation of, "I'm in Paris."  This black iron is Paris, with light shows at night and admission fees.  My tired legs curl under me and, sitting Indian style on the green lawn, I have my picnic.  Dark clouds hover around the very tip of the Eiffel.  At first, it's a drizzle, but soon, it's thunderous and pouring.  Shit.  I'm stuck in this storm, with my soggy baguette, soaking and cold, running for cover.  And fuck Paris, I think.  Fuck it.  It's absolutely gorgeous, but fuck it.  I buy a cheap umbrella and swim back to the boat, and my shoes are soaking wet, and my toes squeeze down into the cushions of my shoe, and cold water wrings out.  When I finally arrive at my floating safe-house, the clouds miraculously clear and, like a Renoir, light spears through silver clouds.

The boat's rocking back and forth and everything's sort of slanted.  It's too damn beautiful for words and yeah, Paris is prissy (with a huge Eiffel stick up its ass), but it's absolutely breathtaking.  And, frankly, the people aren't half-bad.

I'm not drunk, I'm just tired because I'm in Paris and I bought a second-hand book today, Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray."  And I'm numb as a dog.  God, I hate Paris, but it's so romantic.  It really is.  God, I love Paris.  We have a love-hate relationship, but the sex is great.  Oh god!  The sex!  Paris et moi.  Je t'aime.  There's the creaking of the ship, one boat down, it's the painted black "Le Quai" and it sounds like moaning.  Paris is orgasmic.  The long stick of bread, the phallic Eiffel, and Le Quai moaning.

I Heart Berlin

Berlin isn't romantic like Paris or charming like an English sea-side town.  It's grungy and underground, but clean-shaven too, and, because of everything I've learned in history books, a bit taboo.  I fall in love with the city one evening, drinking mugs of German pilsner in Prater Biergarten, Berlin's oldest outdoor pub.  Rows of picnic tables are lined symmetrically, one after the other, and strings of light bulbs criss-cross above your head.  I'm sitting with two substitute teachers from Maryland.  Later that night, we play ping pong in an empty white room, then we get our hands stamped and go dancing.  But at this moment,  with two strangers from Maryland, slap-happy and on-the-verge of sloppy inebriation, I sort of stumble on my words when I pronounce, barely, "I love this city."  I mean it too, every single syllable.  It's the artwork that's tagged on the side of concrete buildings and it's the relevancy, how recent everything is.  In 1989, the wall crumbled down and the east ran west, bottles of champagne spilled in celebration, and, as history goes, David Hasselhoff was somehow responsible.  Berlin is zany in that way.

Right after leaving Berlin, all I want to do is return.  It's my favorite city, hands down, and the people are ultra cool and I drink lots of Berliner.  I travel to the east-side gallery of the deconstructed wall and I get lost in a fenced-in-lot with Carribean music and imported sand.  The streets are studded with curry wurst stands and vintage shops; I like the people and I love this weird city.

Berlin has been divided and broken-down and bombed, but, miraculously, it's transformed itself into this phoenix, rising from its ashes (and in Berlin, there's a whole lot of ashes), an emblem for re-construction and reinvention.  And, although the city is spanking new with lots of cement and mohawks and worn-in combat boots, you can't really escape its past.  On a free walking tour, the very short guide leads the group into a parking lot.  "This," he projects for the whole group to hear, "was the location of Hitler's bunker."  Cars are parked and the ground is un-paved.  And that's basically it.  There's the past, which is very much present, even if it's a parking lot.

And I'm Jewish and my dad's a Rabbi.  Growing up Jewish, you eat bagels and lox, and kugel, and kishke.  When you meet a fellow Jew, there's this mutual understanding, this nod.  We, you both think, share the same ancestry, the same history, and together we were persecuted, and together we were saved.  It's this knowledge that we, somehow, share something and maybe it's Yiddishkeit or maybe it's the holy land, or it might just be that we both eat matzah ball soup, but it's something.  It's the common 'we.' And there's the Holocaust, where families were dismembered and humans were slaughtered.  Survivors come into your first grade classroom and speak to you and they say, "I survived, but there's this number," and they show you their inked wrist, numbered like a bar-code.  And this amazing city of Berlin was the epicenter, the blinking control room, for Nazi Germany.

When I'm there, I don't think about it much.  There's too much happening in the present.  I'm above ground, where Hitler's bunker is land-marked, standing next to a sea-foam green hatchback.  "Alright," it doesn't process, and then I'm off, walking to the next historical site, following the absurdly short tour guide.  After being home for several months, looking back, the city's very strange and very far.  It's similar to when you're so close to someone and then, all of a sudden, you're not.  A falling out perhaps.  Something happens and that person becomes the furthest and strangest human being to you and you think, "Who are they?"  That's the way I feel about Berlin right now.  I'm conflicted and confused.  I still love the city, but it's different now.

My last day in Berlin, I take the train to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.  There's a huge concrete tower before you enter the premises and there's a memorial garden with butterflies.  Weeds disguised as yellow flowers grow rampant.  There's a gift shop with souvenirs and, for a pound, you can purchase a map of the grounds.  When I first get there, sludging through the mud, tourists pose for pictures, smiling in front of the tower.  This place, which symbolizes death and human cruelty, has a gift shop and smiling tourists with flashing cameras.  After you enter the iron gates, it's quiet and isolated and spread out, so that most of the time, you're completely by yourself.

When I first arrive in Berlin, I don't know what to expect.  It's overcast and a dark fog creeps low. You can't see much, except for the tall pin-needle of a building, several kilometers away.  The city's history precedes itself and is eerily present- it's in the skyline and in the fog- and you think: 1940's Berlin, this must have been hell. 

Cawabunga

Two 50's girls in the 90's

All Allisons have dirty blonde hair, stick-straight and shoulder-length.  They make lanyards and friendship bracelets and chain-read "The Babysitters Club."  This is a fact.  And all Staceys, Chelsea says, are a little bit older, have braces and boyfriends, and wear scrunchies. 

I say "peanuts" a lot because it sounds like "penis," and it's so funny and everyone laughs.  When Chelsea says it, she gets in trouble.

Chelsea and I collect stickers and our favorites are the oily ones.  And Pogs too, except we don't play pogs, we just collect the slammers.  Chelsea notes that for two weeks during the Summer of '94, jacks make a comeback.

Playground bullies named Kimberly with pigtails and spandex shorts befriend me.  I'm not sure why, but playground bullies always like me.  And why are all playground bullies named Kimberly, and bigger than everybody else?  But, I'm small and puny and don't speak much in the classroom.  I chase boys around the school yard and I watch too much Power Rangers for my own good and, like every other girl on the playground, I'm the Pink Ranger.  I like all the boy Rangers, especially Tommy because he has a ponytail.  My first kiss is caught on our VHS video camera, during my 4th birthday party.  His name is Alex and he always wears a pirate hat.  I'm eating pizza when he kisses me.

HeartThrob is our favorite game, although I'm pretty sure we never play it correctly because we never actually use the board.  We just look at the cardboard photos of, as the game alludes, 90's heartthrobs: there's Chad (I like him because he plays frisbee with his dog) and there's Chip (Chelsea likes him because he plays football and has a nice smile).  Our babysitter likes the muscle guy, who Chelsea says looks like a Brad, but he's not our type.

Chelsea has the hots for Macauley Culkin in Home Alone 2, "a big fan" she says, and JTT is a dreamboat and so is that boy from the Sandlot. 

Hopscotch and cat's cradle... what else?  Handball, the best game in the universe and your fists are red and smell like burnt rubber after.  And I'm the queen of sliceys.

Chelsea and I put our All4One cd into our boombox and blast "I swear" while playing the Nintendo game where you shoot ducks (hindsight, what a violent concept) and Sega Genesis, Sonic the Hedgehog of course.  And what about Fruit Roll-Ups and Gushers and Corn Nuts?  We get the variety pack of Corn Nuts and the ranch flavor is the best and the original is the worst, and for some reason, eating a package of Corn Nuts makes your mouth really warm.

For countless recess marriages, I am granted the privilege of being maid of honor.  There's one marriage in particular where Fawcett, the girl who's named after a household appliance, marries a chocolate bar.  The service is very emotional and the reception is out of this world. 

We raise villages of sea monkeys and, one day, my best friend spills one of our thriving communities all over herself.  As she stands outside in the sun, dead colonies of sea monkeys drying into her floral frock, she sobs uncontrollably.  (Chelsea and I still have yet to forgive the stupid bitch.)

And tamagotchis, where I realize that I'm cruel and press the punishment button a lot.  And furbies too, after years of abandonment in the garage, the batteries still work and the little creature opens its eyes and talks to you when you walk by.  Chia pets also.

And Sanrio, those flexible pencils and flavored erasers.  Sleep-overs where girls chant "Bloody Mary" in the bathroom, lights turned off, and then try to defy gravity with "light as a feather, stiff as a board."

And the funniest interactive joke in the world: Spell PIG backwards and then say funny.

Summer camp with counselors who have white sun-blocked noses.  Roller blades and hair wraps and turtlenecks with french braids.  Legends of the Hidden Temple and Salute Your Shorts and Strawberry Shortcake and Ninja Turtles.  In the hot sun, you suck Otter pops out of a narrow plastic tube and it makes you cough. 

Thailand

It's complete filth, complete infestation and grime, crawling with all sorts of microscopic creatures.  And you wallow in it because you don't really have a choice.  And the streets are lined with shit and pee and curry-paste and the pitter patter of tourists and locals alike.  And yes, I'm filth.  I rot into the background with all the others, somewhere in between pavement and ocean.  And it's raining again- and all that filth accumulates, grows, sucks in the moisture and it speaks to you.  And at first, it sounds like grumbling, a machine, a vacuum two houses down?  But, if you stop and it's quiet right after the rain, the heavy downfall, and then the silence that follows, you can hear it as it speaks to you, opening it's hot mouth, "Drink, sit."  And the shop-keeper glares at you, opens her wrinkled mouth and echoes, "Drink, sit."  And you do.

Kanchanaburi Tales: Peeing in the River Kwai

I'm sleeping on a boat that's floating on the River Kwai.  I'm a little star-struck because in Ms. Conner's high-school film class, I watched 2/3rds of David Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai."  It was segmented into three class sessions, but I played hooky one day.

The floorboards are damp and creaking and the toilet is a hole in the boat.  When I'm peeing, I think about Ms. Conner's film class and about how six years ago, I'd never guess that my urin would be spilling into this muddy river.  Life is funny that way.  It's weird to think that I'm now part of the Kwai, that somehow I raised that water level a milli-milli-milli- centimeter, if that, and part of that H20  is me. 

The boat is long and narrow with Christmas lights strung around the ledges, curling around columns like ivy.  Every day at around noon, food is served on deck.  It's chicken curry and white rice and steamed vegetables.   And for some reason, Michael Jackson always seems to be playing on the speakers.

One evening, after a very long day of getting lost and bus-taking, I meet the chef, a rusty old Thai sailor.  He chain-smokes and doesn't speak much.  Coughing, he wipes his mouth, and pushes a bowl of meat chunks towards me.  "Very good," he nods, then coughs again.  "Okay," I say and smile.  The cut of meat is slightly cold, but flavorful to the max.  I chew it for a couple minutes, then swallow.  "Very good" I reiterate, but he already knows this and he's too busy coughing.

There's the front desk clerk, a 30-something year old guy who's shaped like a box.  He sits in a wooden cubicle that's located in an isolated corner, transfixed on his glowing computer (apparently there's decent internet connection on the River Kwai).  He shows me pictures of himself dressed in uniform.  Border patrol between Thailand and Burma, he announces proudly.

Earlier in the day, before I get lost in the tourist-trap of Kanchanaburi and take three buses back to the boat, I'm standing on the bridge over the River Kwai.  Too many people stand on it at the same time and the iron-skeleton sways every which way.  It's too hot to bear and motor boats flurry past, but this is the same bridge that's in that movie I saw two-thirds of in my high school film class.

Chocolate, Beer, and Estrogen

I get there five minutes late.  He's pale-faced and and has a small pointy nose, and he walks to the left and drags his right because of a coma he had ten years back.  This isn't how I remember him being (actually, I don't remember him at all) and I feel sick when he approaches me, smiling, and says, "I didn't think you'd come."  And then a little bit later he asks, "Remember what I told you about our kids?"  No, I lie. 

There's something very womanly about his frame and demeanor (and it might be the female hormones that he injests once-a-day because his throat doesn't produce them).  Mostly, it's his feminine arms and stomach.

He shows me around his neighborhood and we eat doner kebabs and there's a slab of Berlin Wall preserved and displayed in the street.  I take a picture of it.  Later that night, I'm drinking Orval and he's drinking Diet Coke.  He talks a lot about himself, how he likes to sing and how he wants to move to Toronto in five years.  He stops talking and I ask him if he's had a drink since the accident and he says that the taste of alcohol makes him sad and I'm on my third beer.

Brussels is confusing.  It's metropolitanized and French and Flemish and German.  It's a conglomeration of cultures and with the E.U., it's difficult to decipher what Belgium actually is. 

It's good beer harvested by monks and great chocolate and too much of the two makes your cheeks tickle. 

I meet Andreas on the train from Brussels to Berlin.  It's very "Before Sunrise" and he's my Germanic Ethan Hawke, or so it seemed.  He schedules me into his digital planner while out-of-focus scenes of the green German country-side swish past his head.  In three weeks, at 2:05 PM, we'll meet at Place de Luxembourg.  He grabs his empty suitcase from the over-head, and beckons goodbye.  Before hopping off the train, he runs back to my seat, on a last-second whim, and, fucking everything up, whispers, "We're going to have three kids."  Just like that, and he disappears.  I wish he didn't come back and, although I'm willing to pretend that it never happened, it unnerves me. 

When you're all alone traveling, people you meet on the road become romanticized into warped perceptions, false realities.  It's not until later, after the initial rush of human interaction, that you sober up and realize that maybe you're just a little bit lonely.

The Majorcan and the Garden Shed

A portrait painted by the Majorcan

London's cool to the bone.  It's the trendy and the hip with posh accents and Top-Shop nonsense.

It's fun and cultured and somewhat pretentious with pub-crawl ambiance and bad British teeth and tea time (which probably contributes to bad British teeth) and distinction and colonization and Manifest Destiny and just a whole bunch of scrawl.

I take the Metro from Picadilly to Wimbledon, get off, Oyster card in hand.  There's a lot of young white people and there's the flower guy outside the station.  There's the expensive grocery store that I'm boycotting and the line of narrow houses, a kid on a scooter and a public bus.

It's the narrow house with the metal planters that Robert calls the "silver caskets."  Inside the house are a bunch of rocks in drawers and cats on prowl.  The Majorcan artist is in the garden (*side note: the Majorcan artist is always in the garden).  Albert has a twitch, smiles too wide, and smells like primer.  His work is strictly portrait and he's in the garden, painting.  I walk to the back of the yard, past the chicken coop to Albert's studio, a converted garden-shed.  I knock on the door just to say, "I'm here."  He shows me his masterwork in progress, naked clawing bodies desperately stretching across three large canvases.  The bodies have dark under eyes and ugly mouths and they look at you.

"Fantastic," I tell him and go inside the main house, open a cider and sit at the kitchen table, thinking about the ghosts in the house and what's for dinner.
Later that night, Albert and I make crepes, drunk on cider and white wine. 

An Allegory

On a black stage with black walls and a black floor:

Two people are sitting on wooden prop chairs.  They're facing the audience, sitting at an awkward distance from one another, so that it makes the audience uncomfortable.  (Without say, two separate lime-lights on the two separate chairs.)

"It's just peculiar," one audience member notes to another, "that two chairs should be so removed and distant from one another.  And on such a small stage for goodness sake!"  And she coughs and takes a breath mint.

So, back to these two chairs and the two people sitting on them, one boy and one girl.  And the dialogue begins with the boy.

I tried calling you.

You did? 

Yeah.

I didn't get a missed call. 

It went straight to voice-mail.

Why didn't you leave a message?


(Nothing.  A shrug at the very most.)


(Pause) I heard about what happened.  It's awful.

I know.

 Are you okay?


No.

(Pause)



You should have left a message.


I never know what to say.

Well, you should have left a message because then we would be speaking and I wouldn't have to stage a fake conversation we never had.

Next time, I promise.

Okay, good.

Calicatt

When she cusses, people cringe.  "It's just not right," they mutter.  And they're right, in a way.  It's because there's something so darn innocent about her, but if you really stare deep into her dark round eyes, there's something sad and wise and orange and a stripe of green, tiger-eyed, a silky luster, like a playing marble.

And poor girl (except she's not a girl, she's full-fledged and devastatingly breathtaking).  And you wouldn't guess it, but maybe you would, that she's been in the back of a vehicle with sirens screaming, all sorts of contraptions plugged into her, lying down, torso up a little, gasping.

And she's been on the brink of the very worst, and she's faced the very darkest, and, at times, she's prepared to accept the very empty.

But, there's this glimmer when she looks off into the distance in her romantic way, the wing-tips of her mouth rise up a little- and it's not smiling, and it's not smirking, but it's the beginning of something.

Outside My Window

Underneath these layers, I'm bound in white spandex bandage.  I sit still and tall, and when I lean forward, I feel the bandage tug tight against my ribs.  Last night, in the car, she takes the key out of the ignition.  "And why," she asks, "are you doing this to yourself?"  It's about my energy and my art and my person in general.
Yesterday, after my ribs cracked like knuckles, I was stuck.  Propped up in my bed with my sketch pad in front, I, lacking precision, quickly etched the view outside of my window.  It was an in-between rain, not torrential and not drizzle, just a substantial amount of water splashing down and splattering.


Who dressed in layers of classic Mexican costume to conceal her twisted ribs and limp leg?  Was it Frida Kahlo, who, bed-ridden and crippled, began to paint? 

Cinema Bar

According to Yelp, it's a dive bar with live music.  The drinks are a bit over-priced and the venue's a bit stale, but it's the perfect location for the two of us to lean against the jukebox.  We dissolve into the background, her and me, discussing this and that, but mostly this, sipping our Fat Tires and, at times, momentarily quiet, letting the music color in our empty spaces.  We're, hands down, the youngest and there's a lady in hippie dippy garb twirling in circles.  In between songs, the dancing stops, and she sits on her stool at the bar, and gulps her cocktail.  "Another one, please," she motions and back to twirling.  "Nice pantalones," says the singer and the dancer nods and keeps on twirling.
After one drink, we call it a night; it's a mutual decision.  "It's gone flat," she says and, showing me the remaining liquid, gives the bottle a good shake and takes a final swig.  It's one of those nights where you spend more time getting there, than you do at the actual destination.  Most of the night, in fact, was spent in the car, fidgeting with the radio scanner, listening to the end of songs.

Ambiance

Chabad Telethon: Behind the Scenes

Backstage at the Chabad Telethon:
Mordechai Ben David is warming up and Jan Murray is looking over his cue cards.  It's chaos and producers with running shoes and fanny-packs (filled with menthol chapstick and used tissues) are walking fast, frantically speaking loud on transportable radio mics.
Rabbi Cunin is up front and all six cameras are on him.  His pointer finger is pointing and the Rebbe's portrait (oil on canvas), enframed in gold wood, is looking straight ahead, staring deep into the camera lens, and maintaining sturdy eye contact with thousands of viewers at home.  Rabbi Cunin is speaking; his black hat and black coat, his silver beard, and his wide spongey feet.  He's talking about mitzvahs and donations and in fifteen minutes, he promises, we'll do the tote and Jon Voight will come out and dance with a bunch of rabbis.  The phones are ringing off the hook and white script like "Mr. and Mrs. Charles Karp from Tarzana, CA just donated $180 dollars" are being scrolled onto the bottom of the screen.
It's two hours-in, 7PM, and we've got five hours to go.
Back to Mordechai Ben David, the show-stopper, who is bobbing in the corner, looking like he's davening, getting his game-face on, stoic and confident, his pais rolled behind his ears.  It'll be his first song of the night, a beautifully understated, father and son duet with a kid from the L.A. Boys Choir. 
The Rabbis' wives sit in the audience with their offspring (a bunch of Menachem Mendels and Chaya Mushkahs), shoulder-length sheitles in place, and draped, head to toe, in purple fabric.
The fanny-packed producer radios into her transmitter, "Intro the tote."
Jon Voight's getting ready to dance.

Desert

There's something very biblical about the desert.  It's where the prophets go and sacred rituals take place.  It's Native American and peyote visions and cacti and red mountains.
The desert is where people go to retire and play golf.  The heat heals aching tendons and the land is flat and vast, except for towering mounds of sedimentary rock.  It's quiet and distant.  A light breeze whistles.
Going to the desert is a task.  The highway lanes are wide and empty.
Coleman, who we always called Norman, who lived next door to us in the desert, who gardened and swept his front door's curling pathway, isn't here anymore.
In the desert, you come and go.  It's cyclical and never-ending.

Epiphany

Around 4:15 this evening, I realized that I, severely mistaken, was attending a senior-citizen yoga class.  I partook anyway and sweat a lot, stretching my lower back and neck.  It was a bunch of senior citizens and me... and one overweight twelve-year-old.
Lying on my back, feet flexed, legs lifted up onto a metal chair, staring up at the stretch-marked ceiling, hearing old people and one overweight twelve-year-old breathe, I had an epiphany.  Actually, today was jam-packed with epiphanies.  But, this epiphany was special as I was exhaling into my hips, just like the teacher said to do. 
I can't recall my epiphany at this moment.
I lost my wallet today.
My dad came home from the hospital.
I shared a joint with my mom and talked about Bournemouth and her brother and willow trees.

Observation Unit

I hate the sterile smell of hospital.  It's like an airport, but more hand sanitizer.  It's egg-shell white and muddy gray and the humming of electronics.  He's hooked up, and there are tubes jutting out of his nostrils and pins inside the bend of his arm.  He's a machine and he's eating his mashed potato and gravy dinner.  There's an unopened apple juice carton.  Christopher comes in, apologizes for interrupting, and starts taking blood.  His heart's beating and the computer screen behind his head is beeping; green lines jump up and down like aztec scribbles.

Half-Staff

There's no wind and the flag is at half mast.  It's halfway up the pole, hanging down, tugging at a tight string.  It's quiet too.  If you're sitting there, you can hear cars parking and planes flying eastbound. People walk past you and their pockets jingle.
Otherwise, it's quiet.

On the bus, earlier this morning: it's how she walks up onto the platform, smiling, and says "Good Day."  She talks about the weather, about how it's perfectly warm, but she's wearing her sweater anyway.  The bus driver nods, but, "it was cold this morning," he says.
"Oh was it?" and she smiles.  "Well, we need the cold," she says.
We sure do, he agrees, "and the rain too."

The difference between Is and Was

Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head 15 minutes ago...
It was headlined on my yahoo homepage.  I clicked on it and now I'm writing a blog.
The yahoo article's been shared over 500 times via facebook, after being published precisely 13 minutes ago.  Her wikipedia page is already past tense.  It begins, "Gabrielle Giffords (June 8, 1970 - January 8, 2011) was the U.S. Representative for Arizona's 8th congressional district. She was a member of the Democratic Party."
There's no time to digest the happenings, it's just fast food consumption that's skimmed in a blurb, on top of a homepage.  It scares me because one moment you're present tense and the next, some anonymous identity is editing your wikipedia page, changing "is" to "was."

UPDATE: Wikipedia re-edited Gabrielle Gifford's page back to the present tense.  She's currently in surgery and the digital world awaits further word on her current condition (which is, hopefully, stable).