So, if at 4am (or 0400 since we use military time here in Israel), you happen to be a security guard on a Kibbutz (perhaps even the one that I’m on) and come to the Refet (the cow shed) and inform us that, there just might be a cow hanging out around the plastic factory on the Kibbutz and inquire as to whether or not the cow belongs to us and if so what the hell is it doing at the plastic factory…please don’t be surprised if we don’t seem to get terribly bothered (always remember, an emergency on your part doesn’t constitute an emergency on ours…and quite frankly, we haven’t finished our coffee yet).

Things we may do, however, are (including but certainly not limited to):

• Ask if you allowed her to apply for a job
• Question why you won’t allow her to apply for a job…you’re not a misogynist are you!? Cows can do just as good work as Bulls! This is a Kibbutz with Feminist values!
• …is this because she doesn’t have thumbs?
• …the least you could have done is taped a pen to her hoof so she could fill out the job application!
• …what about equal opportunity!?
• And just where do you think the cow lands after she jumps over the moon? Gotta land somewhere!
• Is this because she doesn’t have her parking tag on? That number marked on her side is her parking permit number…where did you want us to put the hang tag?

…we have a wonderful sense of humor at the Refet…I think it’s a job requirement, sadly though, not everyone understands our sense of humor…fortunately for us, the cows do…also fortunate is the fact that the cows are herbivores, don’t have thumbs, and aren’t allowed to own firearms…or we’d be screwed.

Ulpan:

Homework

Studying

E-mails:

Scott Paauw

Rev. Linda

Sandra K.

Justine

Lasher

Travelogue

Phone Calls:

Rabbi H

Blogs:

LIW

…who doesn’t think I’m really Gay…cue laughter.

I’m writing this from my cellphone in Jerusalem. It’s been a fantastic weekend with really nice weather

Yesterday was spent at Shirah’s parents’ house in Ma’ale Adumim where we had Shabbat and today was spent catching up on sleep and then heading to a cafe to study and do homework, followed by a trip to the Old City to pray at the Kotel.

Right now we’re going to watch a movie and then at some point I’m going to head to Tel Aviv so I can get back to the Kibbutz (I have work on Sunday at 4am).

A longer post when I’m not updating from my cellphone.

Peace!

- M

I’m presently sitting in the Refet office alone as I cool down the last bunch of cows due to the Hamsin (basically we put two groups into the cool showers at a time, and we let them take a cold shower with fans blowing for 50 minutes a pop). Once they’re done with their shower (which should be in another ten or so minutes) I’ll bring them back to their homes, lock up the Refet (the next shift will come in and unlock it at around 18h30m), head to my room and shower and then go meet a friend of mine in Tel Aviv to look at an apartment we’re thinking of renting together.

After that I’m going to meet up with Shirah and spend the nite at her place in Jerusalem (since tomorrow, Friday, I have a day off). Spend Shabbat with her family (and IDK my BFF Natalie - her younger sister) and then back to the Kibbutz Saturday night after Havdallah.

I have a ton of homework I’m bringinng with me that needs to get done, as well as a bunch of studying, which means that I’m leaving my laptop on the Kibbutz since I won’t have time to use it anyway and I could do without the distractions.

I’ll check back in with everyone sometime Sunday.

Happy early weekend all!

- M

…and I just weighed myself for the first time in five months, and I now weight 190lbs (86.18 Kilos)…total loss of 35lbs (15.88 Kilos)…time to keep on keeping on…vegetarianism looks good on me.

In other news, time for Lunch…and then time for Homework…followed by work at 6:30pm, and then some more studying, then bed…Tomorrow is a trip to Mt.Carmel :o)

Of Clarinets…

The Clarinet is - hands down - my favorite instrument.

I had wanted to play one for a long time…but they were expensive.

One day my father, who (depending on the situation) is incredibly observant, was driving around and saw a piano at the side of the road…that Piano made it’s way into our house later that day and we started taking lessons (a gift from our Grandparents’ in Florida).

My twin was already playing Trumpet at this point since he was in district and had the benefit of a music program (I was in a Special Education school that didn’t have a music program, but believe me I understand why…because if I were in charge of the school, it wouldn’t have a music program either). Together we started our lessons, and we both took to the piano wonderfully. I competed in NYSSMA three times, my first time getting an O (the highest you can receive) and then my final two competitions both getting an E (the second highest you can get)…I wore my wonderful Beethoven’s 9th Suspenders each time!

However, as fate would have it, our Piano teacher was finally offered a full time position teaching music and was giving up private lessons, and I was lucky enough to have a first Cousin named Bob, who - while being a Physics teacher - also played Clarinet and Saxophone and taught lessons on the side. He gave me my clarinet (causing me to promptly ditch the piano, something I have never regretted, having been finally given the gift of a wonderful clarinet!) and taught me the basics (I still have the first ever reed I was able to play on, in my memory box). I then took private lessons for about five years until (as I remember it) a whirlwind of change was around me (coming back to District after six years in Special Education, four of those years spent in private schools for students with special needs, coming out of the closet, and a host of other changes) and I stopped private lessons because I already had enough on my plate.

I started to practice again my Freshman year of college, but found that it wasn’t terribly appreciated in the dorms, and with no music rooms to practice in, and with a lot of other things consuming my time (the flux of change that comes with going to university for the first time) I put it off, sophomore year I smashed in all of my teeth (among other damages) and just resigned myself to the fact that the Clarinet would have to come back into my life at a later time, when and where that time would be, I didn’t know…but I knew that I wasn’t abandoning my friend…just taking the time necessary to put out the fires so I would have the luxury of playing, and I filled my time with other things

…well, here on the Kibbutz, where I’m finally settled in (with two months to go), seemed like the right time to pick up where I left off (see: “Of Free Time” below) and so while walking with Itai the other day (which is a post for Tomorrow) I picked up a box of reeds…and it felt really, really good to have them…I haven’t sucked on them yet because I can’t tell if that feeling in my nose is allergies or a cold (though I’m leaning towards cold) and I don’t feel like wasting a box of reeds…but my Clarinet is cork greased and I’m downloading some Klezmer sheet music and getting back into the habit…and then of course, quite soon, I will have an apartment with a friend of mine in Tel Aviv, and I know that she won’t mind me practicing either…mostly because I am long past the days (those painful days) of where I sounded like I was backing over a moose (no really, it was bad…and it really did sound like I was backing over a moose with a tractor-trailer) and can say with confidence that I can handle myself with my instrument…and with a proclivity towards Classical and Klezmer music, it’s a far, far cry from asking someone to listen to Scream Metal.

I think after the IDF I’ll see if I can find a good teacher here again to take private lessons from (I can ask Mrs. Lipsky - the Hebrew teacher I had at University - to put me in touch with her Sister in Law who teachers Flute here on the Kibbutz, to see if she can recommend anyone).

I can certainly play on my own, and I can play reasonably well…but I’m no where near the level I would like to be at, nor am I near the level of public performance or joining an ensemble (which is something I would like to do one day…not for the public performance aspect of it, but I think an ensemble where I could play with others might be a really nice hobby and grounding stone, especially later on in life).

Of Free Time…

In other news, I have found myself with the ‘problem’ of free time.

Something I haven’t had in around six years…at UB I’d fill voids of time with things like committee meetings, joining clubs, doing HIV/AIDS education or condom passouts, going out dancing, volunteering somewhere…but that’s not really possible here for a variety of reasons (my mobility is, presently and until the end of this program, stymied)…and I’ve joined one committee here (that meets maybe once a month) so I have fallen back into the wonderful world of hobbies…and I’m not sure why I ever stopped some of mine (probably just because I much preffered doing something socially, and didn’t connect the dots that you can be social and also doing something with your hands) but I do enjoy sewing as my favorite “do something with your hands” activity for a variety of reasons: it’s cheap, you can carry a ton of thread, needles - I’ve never liked sewing machines - and cloth with you, in a small amount of space, anywhere you go…and they’re not heavy which means it won’t weigh you down (you bring bits and pieces of fabric with you, and leave the larger project at home, and put it all together at the end).

So, I’ve started sewing a new quilt…well, actually a quilted duvet would more accurately describe it. I had never been a fan of duvets in general, my initial assumption about them whenever I saw them for sale back home in the bedding section was ‘why on earth cover up your blanket’…until I came to Kibbutz and saw how they cheaply, and efficiently, made warm blankets that were plain white, and then you’d put them in a Duvet not only for the cover (which is pretty)…but to make washing quicker (since it is much easier and far more efficacious to wash and dry something not much thicker than a sheet than it is an entire quilted, thick, winter blanket).

When finished, the top 1/3 is going to be a pattern of blues, with the lower 2/3 being a pattern of dark greens, and around the border, are inch by inch squares (in a tiny windmill pattern) of white and black…and add in some appliqués of sleeping cows lying down and some embroidery of stars and we have ourselves a wonderful scene of bovines at rest to go to bed with. I was originally thinking of doing a fun one with a religious twist…but while visually it might be cool…I think it’d be weird to go to bed with Moses.

The other benefit to having something to do with my hands is that it means I’m not using them to throttle the youth group that’s been driving us nuts.

Anyways, it is now 5am…I’ll be sleeping until 1pm or 2pm (today is a day off for the Ulpanists) and then from about 4 or 5pm until 10pm is a study session in Kita Bet.

Much more to write about, I’m behind in emails which I’ll also catch up on Tomorrow and Chag Sameach and Good Night!

…all you have to do is watch this episode of South Park…in full…and for every Thanksgiving reference, just insert something about how pharaoh sucks or about how rocking Moses is…other than that…they’re identical…down to Gobbles.

1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks.
Creek

2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called.
Cart

3. A metal container to carry a meal in.
Lunchbox.

4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in.
Frying pan.

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people.
Couch or Sofa

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof.
Gutter

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening.
Porch.

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages.
Soda

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup.
Pancake.

10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself.
Sub

11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach.
Trunks

12. Shoes worn for sports.
Sneakers or Sneaks

13. Putting a room in order.
Straighten up

14. A flying insect that glows in the dark.
Firefly

15. The little insect that curls up into a ball.
Pill bug.

16. The children’s playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down.
See-saw

17. How do you eat your pizza?
Fold it in half, fod the tip in

18. What’s it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?
Garage sale.

19. What’s the evening meal?
Dinner, or as we say in the Jewish Community “Take out”

20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?
Basement

21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places?
Water Fountain

I use a Turkish Coffee Pot on a heating element to make my coffee (the only way to drink it: with the grains in the glass, sludge like, and black), and it has the habit of jiggling around on the element, making the same noises that a percolator does when it’s percolating and it reminded me of one of my favorite songs.

When the Queer as Folk Third Season soundtrack came out, I was quick to buy it. The CD came as a two disc set, the club music, and then the life sound track music. What was striking about the collection was that the club music was spot on (I love club music, probably more than I like most other music).

The sound track music however, was even more striking, showing - perhaps - just how similar all of us are if the same CD can speak to all of us (Tops, Bottoms, Bears, Twinks, Leather Daddies, Preps, Jocks and whatever other categories we’re presently using to separate ourselves from one another). Listening to any of the songs always seems to remind me of that summer and the associated people, men, and cologne that went along with it.

The beginning of the song Loretta Young Silks by Sneaker Pimps always reminded me of a percolator. The beauty of the song being placed where it was on the album (as the first track) was that for those of us into the club scene, the images that it draws in the mind are coming back to your apartment with hard wood floors, with your boyfriend after a night of clubbing, that initial fall down on the couch that precedes the real reason we all go out clubbing anyway, and the snuggling that occurs both before and after those private moments that define time between sunset and sunrise…but the song can also go well with an opening scene, an early morning sun is just an hour away from making it’s first appearances through the windows of that same apartment, the smell of coffee rising up with the crisp winter air from the café that’s across the street as the city slowly comes to life.

I do happen to miss the architecture of Buffalo (saying nothing of my family members on Long Island and friends from all over whom I miss dearly) and while I certainly don’t miss Buffalo’s Gay scene (totally incompatible with what I wanted out of a life in the Gay community, though wonderful for so many others and in general, good people) the architecture of all the places that the Queer community called (and calls) home was something amazing…Buffalo isn’t called the Queen City for nothing…perhaps the meaning is just a little more hidden from most people who have no reason to not take it at face value.

And it’s also a pretty good metaphor for how I feel on the Ulpan right now. I’m percolating.

I’m certainly learning Hebrew, my Hebrew is certainly improving (I went to request a tutor the other day, and was sat down and told that I patently didn’t need one and that I was where I should be in the program). I can now do past, present, and future tenses. I have the syntax down. So now (outside from the in depth grammar points, the wisdom behind the Niqqudot that - as a Linguist and ginormous geek - I want to get into) it’s vocabulary building, speech practice, writing practice.

And I’m percolating, letting it all brew. The problem with being an intense person/student is that in a situation like this, there is a lot of passive learning, constant repetition, but little active learning. Not to mention that the learning curve (tried, tested, and true) is that you start off with a steep slope of learning that lasts a couple of weeks (three if you’re lucky - for me, here, it was two) where you (emotionally) feel like you’re learning, and then a very long plateau where you feel like you’re just existing (emotionally: come on already!!), and then you wake up one day, the learning curve jumps almost straight up, just slightly slanted forward and you skyrocket to new heights you never imagined…I’m well past the initial steep slope, and I’m walking across a long plateau right now, so the only question is when that leap is going to come. Combined with the fact that I’m also the kind of person that finds a twelve hour long class, with one half hour break for lunch, appealing…I find four hours of instruction a day too little to satisfy me.

So I’m studying on my own, I’m doing homework, and I’m flash carding like a demon with the limited vocabulary and 93 verbs that I’ve been given and about two hundred of my own words and I’m (for the most part, though not tonight) listening to Israeli music and…I’m percolating.

A friend of mine asked me the other day how we would know when we were adults in the real world, and I think it probably happens around the time you stop viewing whatever stage you’re at in life as a stepping stone to some new, great adventure…when you get what you really want. I’m getting there (thankfully not rapidly).

I used to think that I really wanted a Ph.D., but I don’t. I do want a masters in either Hebrew or Arabic, but not wanting to go into academia and not wanting to teach, and with the realization that neither a B.A., M.A., or Ph.D. is required for what I actually want to do in life (travel the globe and be a writer) it would be a waste of time, more than six years in a building…when I could be hanging from trees in the congo or attending a tea ceremony in Japan or meeting Transgender Filipinos prostitutes…things I would much rather be doing than sitting in a lecture hall.

Originally it was my plan after the army to open a wellness center to earn money as I worked towards my masters and pay the bills…but I’ve come to view that plan as placing another stepping stone down on the path that will lead me to where I want to be and hinder my attempts at getting to where I can let my ‘real life’ begin; so rather than that I’ll just be purchasing a chair to give massages in and during the summer, I’ll be hitting the boardwalks and talking to tourists in an accent, pretending I speak limited English “my God…you’re from Long Island! I have always dreamed of visiting such a place…I have heard such wonderful things, if only I can get there one day…to the New York!!” and in the winter, giving massages at the mall, to pay the bills and fund my higher education for a few years while at the same time I use what money is left over to travel during intercession and write, to build my portfolio and hopefully, one day, get hired up by a travel or outdoor adventure magazine and get known so when I finally finish one of the three books I’m working on…I can get it published…this of course, would lead me to the last stone on the path (or rather, the part of the path I can see) which would be to find a Husband and start a family.

It does help to have supportive parents though. I don’t know many other people who have parents that go “you do realize that there’s no other career for you other than writing…right…right?…right!?” I’m under the impression that if most other people went to their parents and told them “I’m going to sell everything, travel the world, write and become famous…” that their parents would go “yeah, just after medical school so you can pay your bills…” where when I call my parents they go “well…yeah…we told you that in High School and you fought us the entire time, thanks for jumping on the bandwagon Johnny-come-lately…now get started.”

So those stepping stones are finishing this Ulpan, signing the lease on the apartment in Tel Aviv with my friend (which we’re doing the second or so week of June, so she and I can move in at our own pace), doing my army service, then starting and completing my masters degree…and then…the end of a Journey to lead me on a career where going on Journeys will be my job…not a whole lot of stepping stones to be where I want to be…and then I guess, maybe…I’ll be an adult in the real world…maybe…but because I want to, not because you tell me to!

I have a pretty bad cold right now, so I’m on codeine that the doctor’s office supplied and I have to go back to the doctor sometime this week (probably Monday, since Sunday I’ll be in Akko on a trip with the Ulpan), and I’m starting to feel drowsy so I think I’m going to head to bed right now…I have a bunch of email and other people’s blog posts which I’ve been meaning to respond to, which I’ll do tomorrow.

Goodnight Moon,

~ M