It ain't over...

I am going out with non-coffee drinking guy again tonight. Just 'cuz.

On the thesis front, I met with my adviser this past Sunday and while he likes my work and would like for me to give a lecture in a seminar he's teaching, he also would like me to re-structure the whole entire thing. Yes, that's right, my 70 pages must be completely re-done. So yeah, all that crap in my last post about my thesis-ending existential crisis, is now no longer relevant.

Slightly very overwhelmed and frustrated.

Also, the pre-seeing my family freakout has officially begun.

Thesis Watch: fuckity fuck.

Music Rec: Johnny Cash "One"

I tried dancing on a Saturday night just to see what the fuss was about

Let me get this straight from the outset. I like dating. I like the possibility of a held hand; the anticipation of intimacy. And to be honest this blind date was not bad on the scale of blind dates. However, I was slightly at a loss to discover that this youngish man does not drink coffee or alchohol, or enjoy movies or food. It is always a bad sign when you're drinking coffee and he's drinking white hot chocolate on a first date. This man eats to stave hunger and he sleeps so as not to be tired. He seems utterly uninterested in exploring the world as it is. His saving grace is his British sense of humor and his obvious enthusiasm for English literature, which he studies. If a man has no vices, he should at least have a passion, or three. There should be a hint of something under his skin. We sat there for a few hours, chatting and I found myself wondering, despite our pleasant conversation, if this is really where I want to be at 7:30 on a Thursday night. Can my life be reduced to a life of the mind augmented by hot chocolate? Is this who I am?
This is obviously about more than just this one date. It is a question I have been asking myself as I am approaching the end of my thesis. I will soon have to make a decision as to whether I want to continue on to a PhD and stay within the confines of the academy. As odd as this is to say aloud, my thesis has been my friend for the past two years and academia my home since I started my schooling. I'm good at it. I always have been. After all, I went to a university where the cultivation of life of the mind is the prime objective; where the t-shirts read "that's all good and fine in practice, but how does it work in theory?" and I thrived there. And yet, I have been feeling lately that I want to do something else; something more visceral and palpable. I want to cook in restaurant kitchen, to open doors to other worlds with food; to watch the eyes of a child light up as they find Middle Earth; I want to feel the slick velvet oil of a horse's hide through my fingers; to come home dirty and grimy and aching with sun and a hurt that reminds me of my body's existence. I want to earn my money by the sweat of my brow and not the grace of a university donor.
And yes, I know, joining the academic world does not negate the possibilities of any of these endeavors. And yes, I know it to be a truth about myself, that like the young man I went out with, I am happiest where I am comfortable; where I know the language, the code of behavior and I don't often venture outside the realm of the already known. But there is another part of me as well. It is the part of me that revels in new places; in taking an experience into myself and walking the world with it;. It is the part of me that wants to be in Paris in early morning light and mist; to learn to dance Flamenco like I saw in Madrid and to ride a rodeo in the shadow of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. It is the part of me in sitting in a bar, waiting for the "hey, baby, can I buy you a drink?"
So whoever you are, I want you to come, walk this world with me.

Thesis Watch: Still at page 68

Book Rec: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

Sounds of silence

Last June I decided to move out of the apartment I had been living in for the past four years. I was determined to live alone. I was coming off of a horrific roommate experience-one that kept me shaking with fury most days- and I wanted nothing more than my own space, my own sunlight across a tiled floor, my own silence. Instead, come August, I found myself in a new apartment living with my sister.
My younger sister and I shared a room for most of our lives, so sharing an apartment just seemed like a continuation of the way things had always been. Of course, we both threw minor fits in the weeks before we moved in, culminating in my sister reconsidering her decision about a week before the moving trucks arrived. We created elaborate rules, hoping to maintain a sense of independence and a life separate from one another. Within a week the rules and the fear induced hissy fits disappeared. After a string of roommates whose lifestyles needed to be accommodated and learned, there is nothing quite like living with a sister. We settled into a comfortable pattern of domesticity- I cook, she washes. She mops, I sweep. I stumble into her room at 6:30 (if I'm lucky) a.m. to feed the cat and then stumble back into bed, she wakes an hour later and makes coffee while I sleep. Some nights we sit and talk. Some nights, when we both come home late and grumpy, we retreat with our computers to our respective rooms and shout inconsequential greetings at each other from across the hallway.
There are drawbacks to this sort of living situation, the foremost one being that when my sister is gone I miss her. She went to the states last week for a friend's wedding and left me with the apartment to myself for a week and a half. When I was living with said horrific roommate I used to treasure my solitude and independence. Cooking for myself was one of the most satisfactory things I could do. I like to think that those are things that I still treasure. My sister left last Wednesday night. By Thursday the silence felt oppressive and the prospect of cooking dinner almost brought me to tears. The joy in sharing a good meal, in feeding someone, is exponential to that of eating alone. And yet, somehow, on Saturday night when my plans to go out with a friend fell through I was glad. I didn't miss my sister any less, but I liked the silence more. I felt that I needed it to brace me for the week ahead. (and what a doozy of a week it has been). I still would rather share my food, but I also have forced myself to rediscover the joy of cooking for oneself. I was glad on Tuesday, when my good friend who is visiting from the states arrived to stay for a few days. I am also glad for these few minutes when she is off seeing relatives and I have this small calm in which to write. It's a balance, I guess, finding those things you wish to share and those you wish to keep to yourself. I'll find it. Maybe the key is having someone who will make you coffee in the morning but understand when you need to drink it alone.

Two random things I will never understand:
1) Why the old Russian ladies wear makeup in the pool.
2) Why the food at haredi weddings must inherently be cold and crappy.

Also, I miss my sister.

Book Rec: Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

Thesis Watch: Page 68.

Devil in the White City

I find that there is a certain intimacy in shared favorite books that is unlike any other sort of closeness. It is a sort of delight and thrill in knowing that there is a part of yourself that you need not explain to the person beside you. Some of my dearest friendships have begun with the discovery these new acquaintances of mine spent their youth devouring "The Chronicles of Prydian", or "Johnny Tremain" just as I did. Now, we have graduated to trading P.D. James, Marilynne Robinson, and Richard Russo with one another, but it is still the same concept. No matter how our lives differ the knowledge that we share an inner world; that our emotional pitch resonates at the same frequency always bonds us.
I arrived home last Thursday night and stood for a few minutes in my front hallway,feeling the need to reacquaint myself with my own apartment. I was returning from Tel Aviv where I had had a decidedly odd experience.When I started out earlier that afternoon I had expected to wander about Bogroshof street for a while, perusing the shops, stopping by the sea and eventually meeting up with my cousin Jason and his friend Josh. What I found instead was Josh, Jason and 20 year old one night stand. Honestly, I had no idea what to do. How does one relate? Is there an accepted etiquette for this sort of situation? If there is, I have no clue what it is. Now I don't begrudge Jason his fun on his vacation and I did end up having a good time, but this situation certainly upped the ante for the "most awkward evening ever" award, especially considering the fact that at some point in the evening I found myself at said one night stand's apartment, sitting on the couch, watching Miss Congeniality.
However, at some point during our wanderings in some strange social dimension I found myself deep in conversation with Josh. We began talking about books, and, as we sat in a bar in Florentine, of languages and a love of knowledge. It occurred to me that it had been a while since I felt this engaged. The bar was crowded, noisy and hot. We were talking Syriac and the early gospels, with the firm knowledge that both of us like Empire Falls and Michael Chabon. What could be better? I left the white city feeling just a little bummed that Josh a) doesn't live in Israel, b) isn't religious and most crucially c) has a girlfriend; and more importantly, feeling more corporeal than I had when I arrived in the city- as if a part of me had found itself once again and taken form.
For the past while I have been feeling slightly dissatisfied with my life as a single woman in the Jerusalem religious community. I have long stopped going to synagogue on Shabbat partially because I need the quiet and partially because I always get the feeling standing amidst the throngs of people that to them I ought to be something that I'm not. I am entirely unsure of what I'm meant to be, but whatever it is, I'm not it. I am perpetually on the periphery- that girl at the who somehow ends up in the corner juggling her drink and plate and is always wearing the wrong thing. In some sense I take refuge in being that person- it's a safe person to be- but there is also a sense in which I feel that I am not engaged; that despite the very palpable common ground that I have with many of the people I interact with in a social religious context, there are not very many of them with whom to discuss books and knowledge.
This is not to say that I have lost my faith- not at all. It is simply that my religiosity is private. A while ago I was at a Friday night dinner where the conversation somehow turned to prayer and how one should react when their prayers are not answered. There was a sharpness to my realization that despite the fact that I, like all the guests at the meal was a young educated religious woman, I didn't feel like I belonged at that table at all; that there was not one person there who I felt I could really talk to. I pray every day, but I do not ask for anything. In fact, I don't think. The liturgy is in my blood, why would I need to think? But even if I did ask for things in my prayers, I would never talk about it. My dialog with with God is sacred and mine alone. As the girls around me talked I felt so completely apart and so completely out of my element- much like I did last Thursday night sitting on the couch in a strange apartment watching Miss Congeniality.
And yet, I don't belong in a bar in Florentine either. As comfortable as I felt talking with Josh, there was still so much I couldn't- and didn't -want to explain to him- my religious life being just one of them. And as cozy and welcoming as that neighborhood bar was, I know it's not my place. I'm not sure where my place is. Sometimes I feel that my life is increasingly being marked by all the things I cannot explain and all the places I don't precisely belong.
It's not so bad, I suppose. There's always the sea, the sky and the prayer of man.

Book Rec: Straight Man, Richard Russo

Thesis Watch: 50 pages and Islamic sources.

It's my party

Today is my birthday. It has been, for the most part, a wonderful birthday. I got many well wishes from many friends and relatives (thank you, facebook) and some unexpected thoughtful gifts. (Hey, look Ma, I can tell time.) I also got my haircut. These are all good things. But I can't shake this feeling of ennui.
I always go slightly haywire around my birthday. I believe this is in part because it just feels premature. I simply cannot be 28. I haven't done enough, experienced enough, loved enough. A person at my age should be more than I am. The world's pace is not my own. My birthday is in December, but I was meant to be born in April. I am still in my incubator, waiting to be able to breathe on my own.
Which brings me to the other aspect of my birthday that is difficult. My birth was a miracle by all accounts and I'm often regaled with tales of my shear stubborn will to live. I evidently learned to crawl with my head on the floor since I wasn't strong enough to hold my head up-but I damn well had places to be, so I went. But my birth was also a trauma for myself and my mother who almost died giving birth to me. We talk about that less. And if it is true that I learned to crawl with my head on the floor, it is also true that I pulled my respirator tube out numerous times. Maybe it was not my will to live that was so strong but rather my will to not be helpless. And perhaps my birthday reminds me that I am helpless- that I came into this world too early, too small and without any weapons to fend off the blitz on my senses that life must have seemed. So if I freak out around this time of year- if I pull out my respirator tube so to speak- isn't that to be expected?
In truth, it was a lovely birthday. I am surrounded by people who love me with an exceeding love and for this I feel extremely and inordinately blessed. It's gonna be a good year. Come hell or high water, it'll be good.

Thesis Watch: pg. 41

Book Rec: Tiki Tiki Tembo- a birthday tradition

take our stand down in jungleland

My landlords have decided to sell our apartment.
I've been trying to come to terms with this latest development, but it's hard. We just moved in 4 months ago and while we most likely will be able to live out our contract, I find that you live differently knowing you're leaving. Why plant those herbs? Why hang those paintings? Why make this place home?
My sense of home is a very important part of my sense of self. The geography of my inner-life often mirrors the geography of the places I have lived. I have strong need for solitude and quiet- a need to allow those places to seep into my bones. If I have any serenity in me it comes from those quiet shabbat afternoons when I am left alone in my apartment with only myself and the cat and some reading material. I do not know where this need comes from, but it is something innate in me. I do not do well without it.
So needless to say I was slightly peeved when last Friday a gaggle of prospective buyers invaded my apartment and gave themselves a small tour. They emerged from the bathroom victorious, crying "we found a wall we can knock down!". I'd like to knock down some their walls. I tell myself that I am not going to let this touch me. I tell myself that I am going to write more, cook more, work more and swim harder; that I'm going to live more. But all I really want to do is stick a frozen tivol in the microwave and curl up in bed with my computer to watch a Paul Rudd retrospective on the Daily Show. (After all, Paul Rudd is a) hot and b) hysterical. What more could one ask for, really?). Being angry often times just makes me want to give up and lay down my arms.
My great-grandmother used to say, אז מען געבט נעמט מען, אז מען שלאגט לויפט מען, which in Yiddish means, "as they give, take. As they hit, run". I suppose this is good advice if you want to survive as a Jew in Eastern Europe, or in the world in general. Take what you've got and don't fight a battle you can't win. But sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes you want to be Bruce Springsteen. Sometimes you want to be Odetta Holmes. Sometimes you just want to take a stand.

Music Rec: Jungleland, Bruce Springsteen

Thesis watch. 33 pages.

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving-
My sister had either the stomach flu or food poisoning. Either way it wasn't pretty.
I ran out of stove gas in the middle of cooking.
I roasted an 11 pound turkey named Gillian.
We ate.
We drank.
We were thankful.
There was turkey and stuffing and pumpkin bread and sweet potato casserole and sweet potato rolls and green beans and salad and cranberry sauce and pecan pie. But alas, we couldn't find any football on the internet.
All in all, not bad. Well, I could have done without the vomit.

Book rec: The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuinn

Thesis watch: 27 pages, and writer's block